Dusty Denizens
by The Strange Pen Mark
Summary: We know that Atlas is making significant strides in weapons development, from creating artificial being, building a comprehensive knowledge of Aura, and 'encouraging' Hunters to join the military. But what are the limits for that development? None, as shown from the main character escaping the control of a super soldier program and saving his newly formed race from enslavement.
1. Chapter 1

Alright, for the inevitable few that will be confused about these things, I'll mention them really briefly here.

The main characters of this story are of my own making. I don't know if that's a normal thing in fanfiction, and seeing as I'm posting this on an actual website FOR fanfiction, I thought it's better safe than sorry.

The nest thing is that the Prologue was meant for a teacher I gave a copy of this too for review. She didn't know anything about RWBY, so instead of writing a normal synopsis on the document, I instead made the prologue in the attempt of creating some elaborate forshadowing. If you know about RWBY and like surprises, you'll want to skip it, but everyone else, please leave a comment about it. I preffer constructive criticisms, but I'll also take sick burns if they're scalding and above.

Lastly, I wanted this to be an actual book, but faced the problem of writing this mostly on an out of date computor that can't handle Word Documents. So when you see text inside of this - (*) It's meant to be a kind of note on the side, simular to the one in the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud.

Alright, enough out of me.

 **Prologue**

Before you read this, you need to know that the perspective is going to switch a little bit in a time line sense. Especially the little notes on the side of the pages. The notes will be written by me after a longer amount of time than when the original material was written. You see, the first idea for writing this was that I keep track of all the events that happened to me after I escaped 'The Program.' You'll learn about them in a minute. Over time, however, I learned that I could use this to also express myself emotionally, so I added little notes and inserts to my 'log,' as it was at the time. But when a friend saw what I was making, they recommended I write it as an account of my life. A story, if you will. So I changed a few paragraphs, took out whole passages, and basically rewrote everything. But the same friend then said that I should have kept the notes on the side, since it showed character.

SO, after a few false starts, a revision, an argument, and soon a small legal debate, this is my story. However, some context may be needed, since I've meet many people that talk of the same things but call them by different names. Since I don't want to change the words depending on where this is being read, I'm gonna set the record straight right here.

The world we live on is called 'Remnant.' The large proportion of monsters that are all black - when not counting any white armor or red markings, at least – are called 'Grimm.' (*I'll describe and tell the names of each one that comes up, but if I forget to do so at any point, you can find them yourself by looking online. **Wherever** you are) The elemental minerals conscious life forms use in weaponry and 'magic' is generally called Dust. The people with animal characteristics are called 'Faunus.' (*Though I like the name 'Beastmen.' I will both laugh and hit anyone upside their heads if they call them 'Furies.' I know the name can mean different things, depending on the context, which is why the violence. But the name just sounds ridiculous when you're describing people that generally have no fur on them whatsoever and are usually stronger and better equipped to survive any hardship, hence the laughing) And the ability of people being able to draw on their life energy as a protective force, a healing aid, or as a unique ability to do extraordinary things, is called 'Aura.' The unique ability is generally called a Semblance.

This has now been established and I don't want to hear any complaints about what I may or may not call them at any given time. These are the default terms I will be using if I'm not quoting somebody or my old thoughts at the time.

Also, for the new groups that I think are coming out of hiding but of which I can't currently (*As of the time I write this prologue) prove exist, let me give you a basic breakdown of what the rest of the world is currently like so far.

Right now, there are four main kingdoms of man – Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, and Mistral - which are cooperatively working together for the most part. There are a few random villages that come and go in our deadly world, and a large rebel faction of Faunus that are angry about the humans mistreating them for being Faunus called 'The White Fang.'

That's everything I can think of, so I'm now gonna start my story.

 **Ch.1**

What are the limits you would go to so that you could learn more about the world? Do all your homework? Study at the top schools?

Sacrifice human decency?

If you said yes to the last one, I've probably meet you.

Okay, before I can properly begin my story, there are a few key things you need to know about me.

1: I was not born. I was made in a lab with Lightning Gold Dust as part of my genetic make-up. See, some supposed genius named Mehdiv was able to make a cloning device so high-tech, people could make their own cell structures and see if they'd grow. He also thought it was a good idea to sell such a device to the Atlas military. Hilarity never ensued from there on.

2: I was made as part of a super-soldier program. I've come to realize that such an idea isn't exactly a new concept when telling 'tall tales,' so you can write me off if you want right now. I wouldn't blame you. Though, to be fair, the heroes get to have a family before being kidnapped/experimented on. That's one way I'm different, since I was made in one of their test tubes and legally considered their property. I didn't even have parents. Well, I guess the machine would be my mother and whoever fiddled with the controls my dad . . . Screw it, I'll just stick with the 'no family EVER' shtick. (*I hope I'm using that word right) It gives you a better feeling of what my life was before - I nearly gave away the ending. That was close.

3: I'm 6'6, pretty muscular, have short, brown hair, blue-green eyes with gold specks, and not too bad features for a guy that lived as a government plaything. (*I also wear pretty heavy armor. The stuff is made mostly of thick segments of metal around the two to three centimeter range on average, not including the edges of joints. They thin outconsiderably, and even fold into each other at some joints. It's mostly gold in color, with small Dust shards at areas to help me weaponize the Dust in my body. I may have also described it somewhere else, but I can't for the life of my remember where and only had enough time for this. In case I die)

And 4: I'm starting my life story on the day I escaped the hold of the people that had me go through constant exercises, survival situations, and organ surgeries. I don't like remembering my life before then, even now. I guess especially now, considering I now know many different ways to live life. That's not to say you won't know what my life was like before this incident AT ALL. There are parts of my life that you wouldn't understand without SOME background info. But I'm just not going to talk about it unless I absolutely have to. Just know that any reference to that dark period of my life is no exaggeration.

Okay, I think that wraps things up. Now for my life story from the middle. Enjoy, I guess?

So my day started pretty normal. Woke up in a training area I didn't go to sleep in, fought . . . Something . . . what was it that day? . . . I don't remember, I fought so many different things while half awake, they've all just blur together. Anyway, fought the killing 'things,' and surveyed my surroundings and state of being.

It was a simple forest. Oak trees, lush grass, not that many bugs in the air. Plenty of berry bushes and game around to eat. Not the worst place I've been tested in. (*Way better than the desert I got dropped off last time) Anyway, I nabbed some rabbits, roasted them, made some bags out of their skins to hold their meat, and then aimed for the tallest hill to survey the land.

A group of Beowolves (*Grimm that look like a mix between a gorilla and a wolf) tried to gang up on me, but -

Okay, I've just been told I should describe some of my abilities and be more descriptive about my fights before continuing, so here you go.

Having what amounts to a magical substance in my basic make-up, I have higher than average speed, strength, endurance, reflexes, and senses. I can see twice as far, lift four times more than the average person, run up to a hundred miles an hour without fainting after said hour, and can perform complete disarming moves without conscious thought. Add being trained by a super soldier program, and I can outdo most Hunters without using my semblance. Which, by the way, is photo kinesis, which lets me control light to do whatever I want if I concentrate. Heal wounds, create force fields, and project near unstoppable forces of color. I get migraines if I do big stuff, though, so I'm not a god.

Not yet, at any rate.

So yeah, 'The Program' was very successful in making a weapon out of me. Also, for future reference, I'm calling 'The Program' that made me just 'The Program.' The name brings up too many emotions at the time of writing this.

Anyway, a squad of 5 Beowolves tried to surround me. Taking the axe that was left with me, along with my shield, I blocked the first strike for my head and sliced the throat of the pack leader. While the others were distracted with their leader's death, I sliced through the stomach of a second dog. I kicked the guts that spilled from it into a third while turning face the fourth. Ducking under the swing of the fifth wolf, I took out its leg while swinging at the fourth's heart underhanded.

After cutting through four's chest, I reversed my swing and buried my axe in the fifth's head as it still fell from my original swing at its leg. The third one tried to catch me off guard by pouncing at my back. I focused on gold light spikes being on my back, and the third dog suddenly found itself impaled in several places.

Just an average fight for me.

I got to the hill without further problems. Climbing the top tree, I saw that there was some ruins towards the east. Since it was the only thing I could see anywhere, I could only assume that it was the objective I was supposed to reach. (*'The Program' taught critical thinking skills in a very 'creative' fashion. Drop the subject off in a random location, have them figure out what you want them to do, or they die trying to figure it out. So many awkward trips to the lab after a 'failure')

I headed of for the place by swinging from branch to branch, monkey style. It's the only fun I got to have when I was in 'The Program.' Along the way, I saw more of the forest. It was really beautiful. There were lots of flowers, vines draped many of the trees, lots of different animals on the ground. It was a good place.

And all I could think of was what I was supposed to kill and how. What does THAT for my outlook on life?

About an hour and halfway to the Temple, I heard some footsteps. I dropped to the ground silently and went to stalk the source of the sound.

It was a group of four kids. Two male, two female. With the way they carried themselves, they were Hunters in training. (*They only had half of the stealth techniques of a full Hunter) The first guy, who was leading the team, was 5'8, wore dark leather all over, and carried an old blunderbuss axe. The other guy was 5'6, wore a bright orange coat, a white sweatshirt underneath, and had jeans on. He also carried some lance/minigun thing I hadn't studied yet. The girl in the middle wore some kind of dark-brown coat that was just plain gaudy for a Hunter to wear on a job. I couldn't see what she carried for weaponry. I couldn't even really tell how tall she was. She moved like a snake when it tries to entice mice to come over. She would have to be the first one I'd have to face if I had to kill them.

The last of the group confused me for a minute. She was 6'0 and dressed as a priest. No joke. Simple gown attire with gold trim, a staff with a rare, pure White Dust crystal at the head, long, gold hair, blue eyes, pure white skin - a priest. At least, what I learned about priests. It didn't come up much in 'The Program.' (*Also, I should mention that when the word 'priest' went through my mind, I felt sad for a second. I won't tell you why yet, so the surprise of the moment that explains everything isn't ruined)

 _I can't kill them yet until I know my objective_ , I thought. _If I wait until they reach whatever it is their looking for, I can learn what they're here for without giving myself up. But that runs the risk of failing in my objective. I could quickly take one of them and interrogate them, but then they'll be on high guard from here on._

Quickly weighing my options, I decided on doing the latter. Picking a spot to grab one of them, I got on a branch and waited. The plan was that I would jump in the middle of their group as they got under me, stun a few with a bright flash of light, take the nearest one I could grab, then run and adapt from there.

As they approached, I heard them talking.

"I don't get why we gotta walk all the way to the Stone Temple, Chaz," the mystery woman said to the leading guy of the group. "Why couldn't we just get dropped off above the place itself?"

"Because, Haily, we'd run the risk of coming across a group of angry Nevermores, leaving us trapped in a metal container that contains flammable liquid and electronic equipment hundreds of feet above ground while giant monster birds try to kill us," he said matter of fact tone. (*Nevermores are the giant hawk Grimm)

"That came off as a little harsh" the priest said.

"I gotta agree with Cassy on that one," the other guy of the group said.

"Oh, sorry. Just tired from the long plane ride." (*I've just been told to write that he said this honestly, not sarcastically)

"It's okay, bro. If you want, we could rest for a -"

At that moment, black vines shot out of the ground from under them. They dodged pretty well, but the priest still got grabbed by one around the ankle. She got yanked away from the others, so I used the opening to get her. I swung behind the trees until the last possible second, then pushed of the trunk of one like I was swimming underwater. Grabbing her around the waist, I threw her over my shoulder, quickly cut the vine holding her, then started sprinting into the brush after delivering a quick stunning move on her neck.

The others never new she was gone until I was fifty yards gone, and since they didn't see me as they fought the vine things, I was able to get away without them chasing after me. (*That made it a good day for me right there. I usually don't get to do stuff like that and get away with it)

After making sure that I was far enough away from the others, I decided on a spot to begin 'questioning' the girl, Cassy.

I found a tree with plenty of strong vines on it. (*Which didn't try to grab me as I got close) I used them to tie her to the tree while she was unconscious. I then put her staff beside me and jabbed solidly on her adrenal gland. She woke up with a start, her eyes darting everywhere as her instincts momentarilly overpowered her training.

"Focus," I said.

She look right at me, surprisingly not as scared as I thought she would be. Then again, I always woke up somewhere different, so I had no right to judge.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"The one who'll be asking the questions from now on," I said. "Now, where are you from?"

"What?" The wheels in her head were turning slowly. "Why would I answer that? Where am I?"

I sighed. I needed her to take me seriously. Grabbing the staff, I broke off a small part of the White Dust crystal. For those of you who aren't familiar with Dust physics, any violent action done to Dust material tends to unleash their forces violently. So I took a small explosion to the face. Or so I let her think. I actually solidified the light from the explosion just before it reached my skin and changed it to look like my usual appearance.

This made it look like I took an explosion full on in the face and didn't even get my hair ruffled. (*I did suffer a stiff migraine from it, but I've been trained so that only extremely strong ones would affect me)

"Does that explain everything for you?" I asked, allowing the pain from my new headache to give my voice a mean edge.

She just looked properly scared.

"So, I'll ask again: Where are you from?" I asked.

"Mantel Central City," she said, slowly regaining composure as we talked.

"Who are you and your friends?"

"We're Hunters in training, assigned to take out the Nevermore nesting grounds in the Stone Temple."

I thought for a minute on the info. I've been sent to take out Hunters on a hunt before, but never a training team. One of them must be a capture target. I know wars have been fought for religious reasons, so I may have already succeeded in my objective - if her clothes were anything to go by, anyway.

Or one of the doctors may have sent me as a guard for one of the kids. One of them may even be theirs. Should I hold them all for ransom? Try to get my freedom from them? No, the last time I tried to get free by myself, I got put in advanced pain endurance training for a week.

It may be that they weren't counted on at all. The mystery girl and their leader - Hailey and Chaz, if I remember hearing it correctly - did say that they were dropped off far enough to not be in range of encountering a Nevermore. If the Temple is the actual objective, then they could have walked in after 'The Program' had swept the area and dropped me off. They could have nothing to do with this.

"Um, excuse me?"

I looked up, so lost in thought that I forgot to keep my guard up. Luckily, she didn't take the opportunity to try something.

"Hm?" I asked.

"What is going to happen to me now?"

She asked a good question. I'm not use to dealing with people outside of a fight, so I didn't really know what to do with her. Looking her over, she didn't seem to be anything more than I could handle. She tried to act brave as we sat there, but I know the signs of fear. Her eyes kept shifting side to side, generally at the ground. A small but consistent shiver in her knees. And she always moved as if to find some way to get farther away from me.

"Hmmmm . . . Nothing," I said.

"Huh?" she replied.

I got up and untied her from the tree. I could easily kill her if I had to, but I still wasn't sure if I needed to. As written before, she may be one of the doctor's kids, so I couldn't exactly do anything to her unless it was completely reasonable, like self-defense. (*Plus, she has a pair of gorgeous eyes that I just could stand to see lifeless)

As she got up, I turned away and started to walk into the forest.

"Wait, are you just gonna leave me here?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah," I said. "I've no need for you anymore and killing you would just mean your friends would be angry when they found you. So I'm letting you go."

I waved behind myself as I walked away.

"See ya," I said.

"Wait!"

"Why?" I asked, not slowing down but not speeding up. She jogged to catch up with me.

"Would you help me find my friends?" she pleaded. "I don't want to be in this forest by myself."

I stopped, a moment of unreasonable anger surfacing for half a second, (*What basically went through my head was 'I use to say that shit every day in 'The Program,' but that just got my ass in trouble. Now she's going to pull that on me?' I knew it was unfair to think that, hence why it only lasted a second) then turned to look at her.

"Why would I help a Hunter in training survive a forest that is probably the safest thing she'll be in once certified?" I asked after composing myself

"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds stupid," she somewhat pouted.

"I would say 'counter-intuitive.'"

"Please?"

That one made me mentally stop for a second. It was the first time someone had asked me for help politely. Well, except the onlookers when I kill someone. It surprised me how nice it felt to be asked without a death threat prompting the response. Then again, she was being left alone in a forest with Nevermores garanteed in the area.

 _But what should I say?_ I thought. I decided to play neutral.

I turned to face her, keeping my face and tone non-expressive.

"What would I gain from helping you?" I asked.

"What?" she asked.

"What would I gain from helping you?"

"Why would you gain anything from helping me?"

"Okay, I'll rephrase the question: Why should I waste time leading you with your friends?"

She thought about it for a minute.

"Um, well, I could bless you, I guess?" she offered.

"What's that?" I asked.

"What's what?"

"Blessing someone."

"You don't know what 'blessing someone' means?"

"Never heard of it."

"Where have you been?"

"Probably everywhere you _haven't_ been."

She looked at me as if she couldn't tell if _I_ was a little off kilter of if _she_ should be a little mad at that comment.

"Um, well, a person like a priest or novice says a prayer to ask gods or such to help them in their endeavors," she explained

I thought about what she offered. _Gods helping me? What are gods, even? Anything like the Glow?_

 _Wait._

"Which one are you?" I asked.

"Huh?" the eloquent response.

"You a novice or priest? You dress like what I know about priests, but I've never heard of a novice."

"I'm a novice, a priest in training."

"I thought you were a Hunter in training."

"Huntress, and I'm training to be both. You're looking at the soon-to-be first Holy Huntress." She said the last with a flourish of movement.

"Cool, I guess. Anything else?"

"Huh?"

"Do I get anything else for helping you?"

"Well, I guess I could pay you?"

"Money means nothing to me."

"Why?"

I thought fast.

"I wander the land and hardly encounter people that use any currency, much less Lien."

"Oh. W-Well, do you need anything?"

She actually asked me that! Should I tell her who I am? About 'The Program?' About how I need to help the ones like me that HAD to exist?

No. She would only become a liability to me right now, and I need to know more about the area.

"Hmmmm, I'm set for now, so no," I said.

"Th-Then I guess I don't have anything I could offer you," she said

We stood looking at each other for a minute. I remembered that she looked a little flustered, but I don't know why.

"Okay, I'll help," I decided.

She light up a bit at that. "Really?"

"Sure. I'll take the 'blessing' thing now, though."

"Oh, o-okay. Um, could you kneel?"

"What?"

"Kneel. Get down on one knee and bow your head."

"Why?"

"I've mostly practiced blessing kneeling people."

"Why would blessing people need practice, much less while their kneeling?"

"You don't know much about priests, do you?"

"Only the wars they've caused."

She sighed.

"Look, could you please kneel while I bless you?"

I thought for a quick second, then shrugged and did as she asked.

"Could you also bow your head?"

"Right, another priest thing."

"No, it's just . . . Kind of awkward for people to look at me while I bless them."

"Then I have to say no."

"Oh, alright," she said, a little exacerbated.

She stepped up to me, closed her eyes, then took a deep breath and spread her arms a little, the staff in one hand and above the ground half an inch.

"Holy Glow, please guide this man on his path, so that no ill will shall befall him."

 _Too late_ , I thought. _Ill will has been all I've faced since I gained consciousness in the machine._

"Please let him see success in all of his endeavors, so that no failure shall lay him low."

I began to feel . . . Something . . . coming from within me. It felt that every part of my being was gaining an energy boost, but instead of getting excited or riled up, a feeling of calm came with it.

"Please let him know peace and rest, so that nothing shall torment him."

The feeling increased. I was aware of a glow starting to emanate from under my armor, from my skin.

"This I ask as your humble servant. Please bless this man and all that he does."

She then touched the tip of her staff to my forehead, accidentally drawing a drop of blood. The glow I was emitting flashed bright for a second, then receded until everything was back to normal.

Except I now felt that I had the energy to wrestle an Alpha Nevermore out of the sky while also having the focus to think about complex war strategies without any error.

"Are you okay?" she asked me, a little freaked out. I guess she did better than expected.

"Yeah," I said, getting up and a little confused about what happened.

"What was that light just now?"

"Me, I guess. Does suddenly glowing usually happen with a blessing?"

"Not with people! Dust sometimes, but never people."

"Well, that explains it," I said to myself. Out loud, I said, "I guess you're just good at it. Now let's get going."

"Uh-Okay."

So we began walking again.

 **Ch. 2**

"So how are we going to find my friends?" Cassy asked.

"We'll just head to the Temple, since they're heading that way, anyway," I said.

"Shouldn't we try to meet up with them _on_ the way to the Temple instead of _at_ the Temple?"

"No, we would just waste time looking with no guarantee of finding them. We at least know that they'll be there at some point."

"Good point. . . Soooo, why are you all the way out here?"

 _Crap, I always forget to plan for this_ , I thought.

"I kind of live around here," I said, and instantly berated myself for saying such an obvious lie.

"Do you mean the nearby village?" she asked.

 _I can't say I do, since I wouldn't know anything about the place. What else can I be?_

"No, I'm from a nomad group that came here recently," I said.

"Oh," She said. "I thought they would stay away from the large Nevermore nest."

"We're kind of a warrior group. We're actually more likely to go towards danger rather than veer away from it."

"Well, where are the rest of them?"

"Well, we just arrived, so we're spread out mapping the area."

"So we'll find more of your friends along the way?"

"No. We aren't allowed to interact with each other while at this stage. This way, we don't make the habit of trusting each other in analyzing areas and are less likely to miss something somebody else missed."

"So why did you take me away from my group?"

"I needed to know who you were without raising too much suspicion. You see, my clan has recently gotten into something of a war with another group. Since I'd never seen you around the gatherings, I thought you might have been part of the other clan. So I nabbed one of you when the opportunity struck to do so without it looking like an actual kidnapping."

"Okay. One more question: why did you choose me as . . . well, whatever I was back at the tree?"

"You were a hostage at that point. As for why I chose you, it looked from what I could see of your group that you are the weakest of them."

She nearly tripped at that.

"WHAT!?"

I had to stop myself from grabbing my axe, much less cutting here head off. She was loud.

"HOW DO I LOOK LIKE THE WEAKEST OF OUR GROUP!?"

"Well, your clothes are in no way something to wear on a Hunt. You carry yourself with no clear focus on your surroundings, you had no real weapon on you when compared to the gear the others were carrying, and, frankly, you look like a model."

"Ah - wait, I look like what?"

"A model. Models don't fight, they pose."

"I-I don't know whether I should smack you for saying that."

An Ursa (*A bear type of Grimm) suddenly busted out of the forest a ways in front of us. It did the usual roaring and intimidation before charging towards us. Cassy instantly went to a fighting stance, her staff head glowing as she readied herself to kill the Grimm. (*Not bad, but she would have been caught off guard if she was attacked from the side like that)

"Stand back, I got this," I said.

"What?" she asked.

I stepped in front of her and braced my feet for what I planned. Cassy looked like I was insane, but kept still as the Ursa came at me. Just as the thing pounce, I threw the punch I had been building up with my Aura. I clocked the thing so hard, it bounced of a tree.

It didn't get up again.

"Okay, let's go," I said.

"R-Right," she said.

We walked through the rest of the forest with no incident. Mostly because of what I did. See, Grimm have a basic intelligence. No more than a typical dog, but dogs understand when they're outclassed. With that show of power, I effectively showed that I'm the king here, and they should stay away if they want to live.

"Soooo, what were we talking about?" I asked as we kept walking.

"Oh, nothing important," she said, a little nervously. (*I guess I scared more than the Grimm with that show)

I decided not to push the subject.

"Alright," I said. "So who are the others in your group?"

"Well, Chaz is the one that leads us."

"He was at the head of your group, right?"

"Y-Yeah. Were you watching us?"

"For a bit."

"Well, that's a little creepy."

I shrugged. (*At the time, I didn't think spying was anything different than looking at someone)

"So, anyway, Chaz leads us. He's a little apathetic, but not enough for many people think he doesn't feel anything. Fair warning, if something is his, and you know it's his, do NOT mess with it without asking him. He will go nuts."

"Dually noted."

"Joseph is the other guy in our group. He's a goof, but I've yet to see anyone lay a single hand on him in a fight. He jumps around like a frog and is as agile as a monkey."

"Got it. What about the girl?"

"Oh, Hailey. She's . . . well, she's secretive. Honestly, I don't know anything about her, other than she's always eager to complete a mission or get in a fight, but not in a hot-headed way."

"Alright. That's good to know."

"So what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. I never even got your name."

 _Name_? I thought. _Right, people have names. Well, I can't say its codename Paladin. What would be a good name?_

"My name is Kuraz," I said, remembering a doctor that was nice to me. I haven't seen him in years, however. Probably dead, since I was getting close to him. They never liked attachment at 'The Program.'

"What's the name of your nomad group?"

"No name. We're just a group that finds Grimm that would kill normal people, even Hunters, and fight them. Test our limits and all that that."

"Well, what are your interests?"

"Not sure. I've only ever fought since I was born. Not much else."

"It shows," she said, and when I turned to pay more attention to what she was saying, she was looking at my armor.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Uh, nothing," she said hastily. "So, you fight a lot?"

"Yeah."

". . . What have you fought?"

It basically went like that for a while. (*Sorry if I rambled on in nostalgia when writing the dialogue) For a Hunter, she was rather chatty. But I liked that. It was the first conversation that I've ever had with a person that wasn't about pleading for their life, reviewing my skills and operations, or what I needed to study next. I regret having to lie to her the whole time, but I wasn't exactly free to talk to people about being a bio-weapon. That usually ended with somebody killing the person I talked to and having me forced to do more advanced pain training.

We got to the Temple without a problem. I could see Cassy's group in the twilight, their camp fire sticking out like a sore thumb with my vision.

"I guess we now go our separate ways now," I said.

"What?" she replied? "No, please, come join us."

"Nah, I'm just gonna hop inside the nest to see how big it is. Later."

I didn't really wait for a response. I just walked away without saying anything else. Not because I HAD no manners, I just didn't know WHAT manners were then. I do now. Heck, I've gone through textbooks of what they are and how they came to be. (*You may know that your mom is wrong when she tells you to keep your elbows of the table half the time. You can put them on there if you're talking with people, but not when in the act of eating)

I'm off topic. Anyway, I went a ways with my tried and true tree swinging method. I aimed for what I guessed (*Correctly) to be the old entrance when this place was in use. There was some rubble, but not enough to actually impede my progress.

The entire inside of the building wasn't there. It was just a large hole in the ground everywhere that there should have been an inside to the building. It was as if the outside of the temple was nothing more than a soap bubble over a sink drain. (*And just as structurally sound, to)

The inside was like a pit with no bottom, even with my enhanced eyesight. Throwing a rock to where I thought was the middle, I heard a hollow 'thunk' that was it dropping onto the bottom. About 40 seconds after I threw it. That made it pretty deep, but I couldn't properly tell if there was any large nooks or hollowed on the sides of the whole for a Nevermore nest to be situated.

My only option was to climb down and see for myself.

Now, to fully explain how I was able to climb down a dirt wall by jabbing my hands and feet into said wall, there are important details to keep in mind. First, when the dirt is loose, you have to pretend your arm, from the elbow to the hand, is a spike and stab it as deep as possible into the dirt. At minimum, you should have the dirt halfway up your arm shin (*IDK what it's really called, and seeing as I was operated on by doctors while conscious constantly, I'll assume you don't, either)

Next, if the dirt wall is very firm, like a strong mix of clay and asphalt to make a natural concrete kind of substance, it is possible to use only your fingers to grip on it. However, your grip must have the competitive power to hold a basketball with one hand, facing down, and not even be trying. The wall must also be gripped in the same way. No stabbing into the wall this time.

Lastly, never trust anything that looks like an embedded boulder unless absolutely necessary. They are rarely secure enough to hold your actual body weight. After that, the rest is regular climbing tips.

Anyway, I must have gotten as far as halfway down into the pit before I noticed the wall was beginning to curve away from me. It was similar in shape to an Erlenmeyer flask, (*The one cup that looks like the bottom half is a pyramid in chemical laboratories) and I was on the inside.

Getting a little lower, I then stopped and decided to face a little vertigo.

I focused on making a small, but strong, ball of white light appear 10 feet below me. I slowly had it float down to see how much farther I had to go.

It went down 100 feet before it shined on the bottom.

The strain of hanging on tight to a wall while willing an orb of light 100 feet from you to shine is like holding on to a jungle gym with one arm at a 90 degree angle while using the other arm to hold a large feather still in a small storm. So I had to let the ball dissipate so I could climb lower and see what was at the bottom then.

Just as I climbed off the wall, I hear something large move in the space at the bottom of the pit. However, because of the slightness of the noise, the seeming largeness it entailed, and the size of the pit, I had no clue where the noise actually came from.

I stood still for minutes, making sure I was safe while trying to pinpoint the sound. When I felt enough time pass, I made a small ball of soft, blue light - no more so than a baby baseball - float 10 feet above me. (*Blue travels farther than normal light while blending in with darkness. This way, I barely made any light, but I could see tremendously better.

No Nevermores where here, but there were a large number of nests strewn about the area. Each nest was the size of a small house, each spread at least a block from each other. Most of them had an egg or two in them, each the size of a large bed.

But that wasn't the scariest thing there. A King Taijitu, (*Two sided snake Grimm, one black half with a head connected to one white half with a head. The digestive concepts of this thing are a nightmare to think about, and it doesn't look nice, as well) the largest probably ever, was in the center of the place. The white head was visible, and it was so large, it could have swallowed ten of me whole without trying. It slept, sometimes its tongue poking out silently to smell the air.

But the strangest thing about it was that, on closer inspection, it wasn't a normal King Taijitu. It only had one head and a stump where the other black half would be. It wasn't a new wound, so a Nevermore didn't bring it like this. In fact, the stump was mostly healed over, so it must have had it for years. But how did it get here, then?

A noise had me immediately dissipate the blue light, putting me back in the dark. But not for long.

It's going to be hard for you to imagine this, but there is no other way I can put what I saw into another sentence. Please bear with me on this.

A figure walked out of what I would later find to be a side tunnel, the exact size of the King to crawl through. Though the entire chamber was in shadow - the light above mostly still blocked by the Temple - the figure was a pure black wherever you looked. Imagine if black crayon markings were in front of a sheet of black construction paper. It wore robes that hid most of its build, but it was almost as tall as me, extremely lanky, and had a hood to hide its face.

It was clear, however, that the person was using some sort of power to make themselves completely black.

 _So_ , I thought, _seeing this persons' height, power to hide himself, and where he came from, I think it's safe to say that I was sent here to capture or kill whoever this is. But what's his connection to 'the project?' Why the Nevermore nest? And why is such a giant but obviously crippled King in here? So many Nevermores in one place I can buy, but Grimm don't usually pair up with different Grimm._

"Soon," said the figure, at least telling me that she was a female, "I will have what I need to pay them back. We shouldn't have been raised - shouldn't have been BORN - but they'll pay for their tampering with life. And I might save him. After 14 years -"

She stopped suddenly. I held my breath, thinking she may have heard me.

"Bof," she muttered, then ran back the way she came. I thought to give chase, but she didn't know I was here yet and I wanted to keep the element of surprise until the last moment.

 _Okay_ , I thought, _think over what she just said. 'I will have what I need to pay them back'; she's after revenge, and since she walked in here with no fear, the Grimm must be her tools to do so. 'We shouldn't have been raised'; she may be some product of science like me, and she is either not alone or knows where others like her are. The 'tampering of life' comment supports this. 'And I may save him'; she didn't sound that old, so she's been wanting to help someone for a while. '14 years,' she said._

Something scratched at the back of my head, trying to make sense of what I had seen and heard. Instead of pushing it off to the side, I closed my eyes and focused calmly on what I knew.

 _Shadow powers, tall, girl, escaped something, Grimm, 14 years, life tampering, revenge, mutters to herself -_

And it hit me.

It was Priest.

 **Ch. 3**

We had meet when we were young and had just gotten our semblances. We were the only 2 in the entire project that had the same ones. However, my Aura was balanced in physically boosting my body and being useful as a projection ability. Priest always blurred the line between the two, but it was obvious that she was better at projecting light than I was. She learned how to use the effects of absorbing light to create an utter blackness. By absorbing all the light right in front of a person's face, she both blinded an opponent and drew power to project light. (*I learned how to do it, but only a year after she figured it out)

Also, about 14 years ago, she stopped coming over to my testing area. I thought at first she was being put into more focused training, her skill with light earning her the codename 'Priest.' But then, one day, a doctor put me in my first 'interrogation resistance training,' demanding I tell him where she went. I was annihilate that day, and also depressed to learn that I was never going to see her again.

We didn't even know the word 'love' while in 'The Program',' but when I learned what it meant, I knew that she and I had loved each other like a brother and sister.

To even think that this might be her . . .

But wait. What about 'The Program'?' Was I sent to retrieve Priest? Check up on her? Kill here? And what did she mean to do with these Grimm? Did she think to rescue me?

With so many questions running through my head, I almost didn't notice the Nevermore come in.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. This Nevermore was just as hard to miss as the King was small. It floated down for about half the way, but then it noticed me and went into a steep dive right at me. At the last second, I jumped up some 10 feet in the air, making the Nevermore hit full on into the wall behind me. I guess in this dark, my eyes were better than the dumb birds.

As I came down, I took out my axe and cut right into the back of the neck of the feathered beast. What my axe didn't slice in the neck, the blow itself either shattered or mostly cracked the surrounding bone, thereby effectively killing the Grimm.

I quickly dashed into a nearby nest to hide as Priest came back out to see what all the noise was. She didn't see the body at first - the light being what it was - but she made a white ball of light that not only confirmed that she was Priest, but also showed me that she had become very skilled with her semblance. If I wasn't careful, she may kill me before even knowing who I was, much less realize that I was someone she knew from a long time ago.

I took a hardened piece of a broken eggshell and threw it in the nest behind her. It made a satisfying thunk sound that turned her attention away from where I was.

"Who is here?" she said as I snuck up behind her. When I was within arm's reach, I answered.

"Paladin." (*That was the name she would recognize me by)

She turned and tried to punch me out of reflex, but the blow was both slow and expected, making it easy to block. The follow-up move I caught and held her arm as her conscious mind took control of her actions.

"It - how - why -" she said.

"I need to point out a few things before we talk about what's been happening between us," I said. "First, I was dropped off by 'The Program' in this area, so I can only assume that they may know you're here. Second, a small group of protégé Hunters are above to investigate this large nest of Nevermores. Third, and lastly -"

At this point I pulled her in for my first hug.

"I think this is a gesture to show close emotions to others."

"It is," she said, hugging me back, "and it's great to see you, Paladin."

She let the darkness trick dissipate, letting me see what she looked like after 14 years. She is now a few inches shorter than me, with long, red-brown hair, and blue/white eyes. She had on simple white robes that seemed to have been her only pair of clothes for a few years. Her skin is surprisingly unblemished and she has, what I learned later on, an average muscle tone. (*Back then, I thought she was sickly)

"Where have you been?" I asked. "I thought you were dead."

"I nearly was," she said. "A group tried to attack the place where we were kept a dozen years back, and I got caught - rescued - taken with the group. Paladin, you have no idea how they've been mistreating us. We shouldn't even have been made."

"I know."

She froze on the spot, then looked me dead in the eyes

"WH-what?" she asked incredulously.

"They showed me how I was made and how other people are made are two different things," I said.

"And you're okay with it? Not being a proper person?"

"Well, I thought that it was weird for a while, but then I thought that you can't really judge life because nobody knows the purpose of it, so why judge life by how it's born?"

She pause as she thought about what I said, then shook her head to focus back on the matter.

"Fair enough," she said dismissively. "But we shouldn't have been raised as weapons."

"I figured."

"Wha-really?"

"Yeah. They've sent me to steal things from villages, so I saw many examples of how life was like outside 'The Program.' Since I saw families a lot more than you think, it was only fair to assume that I was watching the more common way people lived. Especially when you consider the fact that you and I are the only people I know that live this sort of life. But I have the potential to be more than any person - more than any Hunter - if I stuck to 'The Program's' training for as long as they kept me in their grasp. So while I had always looked for a way out, I put as much enthusiasm as I could in learning what they were willing to teach."

"Okay," she said, completely thrown off by my arguments AND agreements. "I had thought there would be this whole argument I would have to put up to convince you to see the world as it was. I honestly thought that they would make you think the world was nothing but a battleground."

"Well, I never said that they didn't try. But it was so obvious to me how the world works from the start, so instead of believing anything they told me in that regard, I never understood their logic to begin with. Of course, they tried other methods for keeping me 'in line,' but it's kind of hard to make a person the perfect weapon by both making them unable to be controlled by anyone AND make them under your control entirely. But enough about how I agree with you. I'm not out of their control yet, Priest."

"Wait, you're on a mission?"

"Yeah, to hunt you, I think."

"Bof, that means they've already set up."

(*'Bof' is a word made by me and Priest to replace swearing. It confused the hell out of the doctors when we made it. We came up with it when Priest winded me in a mock fight. She said she distinctly heard me say 'bof' as I gasped for air and thought it was hilarious. It then became a kind of running gag after that. Especially since it annoyed the doctors)

Then she smiled, both a warm one to me and an icy one to 'The Program.' (*Or any thoughts about 'The Program' that she was having, it that phrases it better)

"Paladin, would you like to be free today?" She asked.

"Hell yes," I responded. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

"Get those kids you told me about out of her as fast as you can. After that, get on a Nevermore and jab right under the skull and right above the spine. They're trained to know that you're their master now if you do that. I'll then need you to find whatever defenses 'The Program' have up around the area. We're going to have to break out of here."

"We may be able to use the Hunters to help us get out. They said that they were flown in outside of your Nevermores' reach, but they still got in. That means that 'The Program' either doesn't consider them a threat, or they managed to sneak right past their defenses without trying."

"Good thinking. I need to go contact some people I know that may be able to help us. Get going. The Nevermores will all be here soon."

I turned around and immediately started scaling back up the wall, using my Semblance to make picks on chains. (*I would throw a pick hard into a wall, then climb the chain until I reached the end. I would throw the next one, pull the first one out of the wall, and then repeat. A bit hard where the wall slanted, but still made climbing a breeze)

Now, you may have expected me to have gotten into a fight with my childhood friend, that I would have to realize 'The Program' was evil on my own - something romantic like that. Well, not only were you wrong because of the previously mentioned reasons, but you also forget that I was made with Gold Lightning Dust. You may not know that your brain works on electricity, (*Rather, chemical reactions that RELEASE electricity from one nerve to the next) but it does. So, when you add brain signals with Magic Lightning, it results in being near impossible to be brainwashed. Also, I got some other biological perks that revolve around nerves I think I may have mentioned.

Anyway, I got to the top of the pit and thought about what to tell the group to get them to do what I needed them to do. _If I come clean, that will only serve to show that I can't be trusted_ , I thought. _But I can't make up a lie to them about what to look for. That would be too dangerous or too risky._

While I thought hard about what to do, I forgot to keep on my toes for any attacks. This meant that I just barely noticed the sound of a weapon warming up before it fired on me. I went diving behind a boulder as the fuselage rained down. The rapid fire made it almost impossible to tell that it wasn't an energy weapon, but some ridiculous rate of fire weapon. Some of the bullets shots over my cover, which let me see that the ammo was Orange Lava Dust bullets.

The Dust was outlawed when in use as a weapon, as everything it touched would turn to ash before it even caught on fire. One forest could become devastated from a single, misplaced Lava Dust Cartridge. It was only ever used as forging fuel, seeing as the heat was so intense that a small teaspoon in five gallons of water made the hottest useable substance ever. (*Case in point, I once have a single drop of said liquid dropped on the back of my hand. It burned through without even losing momentum. Luckily after that, whenever I'm in extreme pain, I just remember the moment that happened, and the pain doesn't feel that bad anymore by comparison)

No one even made the cartridges anymore, except in one place.

'The Program' was making their move.

Patting myself down, I felt the bug that they had put on my armor. They had heard everything I had said to Priest. So they went on the offensive to try to get the upper hand. I threw the bug up in the air, where it was immediately shot down from the incredible gunfire.

Soon, the gun stopped firing and I peeked out to see what was attacking me. The attacker was the new Atlesian Paladin mech that I had seen being tested in a previous raid I was dropped into. It was part of the new 300 series, so the scientist of course wanted to make it look flashy and seemingly impractical without it looking defective. This meant the giant robot was a lot of curves, sleek metal, and transforming parts. This one also had a head. I mention this as most of these giant robots are usually manned suits, not their own droids.

But what really showed that the scientists were showing off with this machine was the fact that it had no joints. Instead, there was empty space where the joints normally would be. To explain in the simplest terms possible, the joints were electromagnetic fields whish allowed the robot to look like a floating assortment of pieces that moved like a proper body. Imagine, if you would, a robot five times the size of you, seemingly made of wood elves practicing metal forging, and looked as if it was held together because the wind kept wafting the pieces where they needed to go.

With it standing on a ledge a few floors above, the sun behind it and making its surface either gleam or hide in shadow, it almost looked intimidating.

As it reloaded, I ran from my cover and jumped into the pit. Using a spear and chain (*Yes, like my pick and chain from me previously climbing the walls), I threw it into the wall closest to the automaton-o-fun and swung towards the dirt. After bracing my landing by tucking my legs up so that my feet hit the wall first, I used my Semblance even further by making force light (*I'm able to slow and condense light to act like a current of air. Think of a Jedi using the Force to push an enemy down, but make the Force shiny) push my body up as I ran up the wall. I then came soaring out of the pit right towards the gleaming golem's head.

The magnetic mech tried to swing an arm to block my attack, but I was too fast at that point. Bracing myself for the impact, I bulldozed right into the floating observance unit (*The head), cracking the thing's lenses with the crash. I easily flipped over the head as it swung in tight circles above its floating torso (*There being no neck to help absorb the impact) and landed facing away from the thing a few feet away. Bringing my axe in a wide, horizontal arc, I pivoted and sliced halfway through the left 'leg.' Quickly reversing my momentum, I pulled my axe out, spun a full 360°, and sliced at the exact same spot from the other side.

Needless to say, the leg was now completely cut in half, which caused the A.P. to fall somewhat down. It didn't hit the ground, as it caught itself halfway, but a lot of its pieces were now floating at odd angles. (*Now, before you read the next paragraph, please know that I didn't have a sense of humor when writing this portion of my story. So when this event specifically took place, I saw it as no more than an opportunity to deal massive damage to the A.P. and end the fight. Please keep that in mind, as I want you to understand how I changed from not seeing such funny concepts to never NOT seeing them)

The torso part was bent away from me, so I took the chance, made a foot-long spike of gold come out of the palm of my hand, and drove it upwards. (*I told you it was funny. I violently goosed a robot. I don't care if it's lowbrow humor, that crap's funny)

So as the thing tried to righted itself, I took the opportunity to climb onto its back. As it made jerking movements to try and dislodge me, I vented my anger of my life-long confinement onto the behemoth and repeatedly hacked at its torso randomly with my axe, chipping away at it a sliver at a time. I was battered on all sides as I hacked and slashed and destroyed the thing. But I fell into a rhythm that helped me focus of nothing but destroying the surface of the automaton. If I damaged the entire surface of the torso, I would disrupt the stability of the entire magnetic field holding it together. Besides, it couldn't risk doing anything to actually kill. Not with the constant damage I was inflicting.

Soon, I found that I had been smashing away at the metal mesh of what was left of the robot on the ground, the focused fury of my attack blocking out the outside world for I don't precisely know how long. No more than a minute at most. I looked around, breathing a little heavy. That last fight went longer than a usual one because I needed the emotional release, but now I may be too frazzled to properly plan out what to do.

I took a deep breath, calming down before I made a mistake.

I suddenly heard a terrible screech come from behind me. I raise my shield, doing all that I can to make a wall of red block the expected damaged. (*Red is easiest for me to control. The level of difficulty of light is from red to violet, rainbow-style. While the higher colors are harder for me to control, they tend to make whatever I'm doing light-wise stronger)

Except the threat was already taken care of.

Another A.P. had managed to come through where I had originally came in. I imagine it had tried to get a look on me as I destroyed its brother. But instead of personally showing me what was inside its gun, it instead had to show me what was in its own torso.

It had to because someone had ripped the A.P.s cover of with their bare hands.

Standing to the side of it, holding the missing segment of protective covering, was a man. He is only a few inches shorter than me, but has a loooooooot more muscle mass. (*Notice that if I still am in contact with people, I use present tense words to describe them. Some publisher tried to say that was wrong, but I showed him how past tense words are used on average, explained my reasoning behind why I thought using them in situations like this, and all around spouted a lot of hot air about the subject until he got feed up and kept it as it was. If you don't like it as well, too bad. I'm sticking to it)

He had on chainmail armor - like old knights would wear, but much sleeker - of beaten steel and iron. He had the visor of his helmet down, obscuring his face. As I watched, he took the serrated edge of the metal and swung it hard across the robots face, slicing it with its own serrated metal.

The automaton fell into a heap after a few more such attacks at a blazing speed.

The gladiator turned to me, I still in a pose to protect myself should he had decided to attack me next.

"Relax," he said, his voice rather young. "I'm a friend of Priest. I was once called 'Warrior' when in 'The Program',' but I prefer to be called Zack."

"You another escapee like her?" I asked, easing up visibly but still on guard.

"Not exactly. Me and Clarissa, another Duster - that's what I call people born as we were - by the codename 'Mage' escaped by breaking out ourselves. We later integrated ourselves with a small town. After a vicious killing seemingly made by a violent nomad group, we attacked what we soon learned was another base like the one me and Mage grew up in. We then found Priest, and decided to take her with us. She then grew up like we did, but had always wanted to go back for another Duster named Paladin."

"That'd be me," I said.

"I figured as much. She sent me a message to come back to help her with an oncoming attack. Thank the Dust I was not too far gone after visiting her."

"Enough. There's undoubtedly more of these Atlesian Paladins coming to kill us, or worse. There's a group of four Huntsmen trainees that will be caught in the crossfire if we don't do something soon."

"If they're anything like an average Hunter, they'll be fine."

"I killed my first Hunter at the age of six. I am now eighteen. They now know that I and Priest are here. They will send much more that any four Hunters can handle. We need to save them."

"Alright. Let's get going."

 **Ch. 4**

I once again swung for where I last saw the campfire I left Cassy. Even if they weren't there, I could track them wherever they went.

Zack was behind me, following me on foot pretty well considering I was swinging from tree to tree at nearly 30 miles an hour.

"What do you go by?" he asked me as we speed through the forest.

"What?" I asked.

"What name have you given yourself?"

"None yet. I'm still supposed to be working for 'The Program' right now and have only just started fighting against them today. So I never made an actual name for myself."

"What do you mean by 'actual'?"

"Well, I gave one girl I meet up with in the group we're looking for the name 'Kuraz' when she asked me for mine."

He started laughing at that.

"That name is ridiculous."

"I was on the spot and it was the first time I had thought about naming myself. I'm lucky I wasn't original and decided on something like John."

"Wait, you were more worried about being original than sounding authentic when lying to this girl?"

"Well, I wasn't afraid of getting caught doing so. If she knew I was lying and demanded an answer, I wouldn't have given it to her. And it's not like she could have made me answer honestly, anyway. But since the last person I told about 'The Program' was instantly killed after I finished talking, I decided to lie to keep her safe. Anyway, what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Do you really only call yourself 'Zack?'"

"It's short for a name of a prophet called Zachariah."

"Then why not introduce yourself as Zachariah?"

"It's wordy in normal conversation."

"Touché. Hey, you mind me asking what Dust you were made with?"

"Red Flame Dust. You?"

"Gold Lightning."

"Ah, a strong element. I hope I get to see you do amazing things in the upcoming fight."

"How about you hope for us to live through the next ten minutes? The things following us aren't going to be easy to kill."

We had noticed that the three of them had been following us for about a mile now, just out of sight but not out of detection. They looked a little like battle mannequins, but that meant that they were a lot faster that the A.P.s we had fought. They had also been programmed to work in unison with each other via Wi-Fi connections to each other, making a kind of hive mind. This _did_ mean that when one was destroyed, the rest of the others processing speed was affected. However, it was made us by the fact that when fighting one of three, it was as smart as three. So destroying one was almost impossible, but if you could, the rest fell easily afterwards.

"Please, if they're anything like the hunks of junk we destroyed already, this'll be a breeze."

At that point, another Scout came in front of us with a grenade launcher/ hammer. It slammed the heavy head right into Zack's face. The sight of him skipping across the ground like a pebble across water would have been funny if we weren't under attack at the time.

I swung myself right towards the trunk of a tree, braced my feet against it as I touched, and pushed off as hard as I could in the exact opposite direction I was once going. This allowed me to tackle one of the Scouts that was behinds us right into the ground.

Unfortunately, it pulled out a small but solid dagger that it lodged right into my diaphragm. I was able to cut off its head as we tumbled on the ground, but know it hurt to breathe. I wasn't going to be able to use my Semblance in this fight.

Zack wasn't as fazed as me. He got up on his feet before he even stopped moving and ran straight for the Scout that knocked him in the face. It fired a few bombs in his direction, but he just batted them aside with the back of his hand before they detonated. Before he reached the grenade Scout, though, it jumped high to show another Scout with a long sword charging for him. It swung in an arc that would have taken a normal head clean off.

But we weren't normal.

He ducked under the blow and punched it solidly in the chest. It went flying back, and that was when I was left to focus on my own problems. The other two droids that I had noticed following us suddenly burst with speed and rushed me. I blocked a swing of a sword with my axe and a barrage of bullets with my shield, but the third got me in the gut with a lance, right between two plates of armor. I instantly felt numb where the wound was, followed by a feeling of great fatigue.

 _The blade was poisoned, but no normal poison should have been able to affect me as greatly as this one did. 'The Program' had trained my body for such tactics. This must be something that was made specifically for people like me._

I thought of all of this in half a second, as the next few ones were going to be critical.

Taking a moment to steady myself, I pushed my axe straight upwards while jumping backwards. This left the droid with the sword off balance and right in the line of fire of the second droid that was still firing a clip from what looked like a rifle. The one with the lance kept driving its weapon into me, dodging the weapon fire and spreading the numbing agent throughout my torso.

It was getting hard to breath. I was having trouble standing up straight. I felt that I was being trapped in my own body.

That made me angry.

I brought my shield down hard across the shaft of the lance, breaking it clean off with the top part spinning out of my flesh. (*The one good thing about the numbing agent was that I didn't have to feel the thing rip through me as it came out) I then bashed the droid with a reverse swing of my shield, causing it to stumble back. I took the moment to bring my axe up for a killing blow to the head.

But the second droid with the gun shot my weapon at the height of the chop, making me hard pressed to catch my balance. The lancer got its footing because of this and proceeded to use the busted lance as a Bo staff. It went to sweep my left leg, but I jumped to avoid it. It then tried to hit me in the wound it made, but my shield blocked it. It went on like this because whenever there was an opening I could use, the second mech with shoot cover fire. If I tried to make a move, I may end up with a bullet in my head.

But you gotta have guts in a fight if you want to live through it.

After blocking a blow to the head, I dropped my axe and caught the next blow that can from the right. Two bones broke in my hand, but I didn't let go. Using my shield to block the gunfire from the second, I pulled the lance backwards hard. The droid had locked all its joints to try to keep its balance, but I just grabbed higher on the lance, pulled back again, and socked it right where its chin would have been if it had a proper head. (*With the broken hand, too. Hurt like hell, but I lived there for the first 18 years of my life, so not that bad in context) I heard lots of gears crush under my fist, and the droids now lifeless body toppled over like a museum statue.

I picked up my axe as I was shot by the second automaton and was about to chuck the thing at its head, when I heard what could only be described as a roar from Zack. I turned to see a speeding rock hurl right pass my helmet, too close and too fast for me to properly react to it. Thankfully, it only hit the Scout in the chest, leaving a perfect hole where it went through. Needless to say, it crumpled like tinfoil.

Still looking in the original direction I turned to, I saw the most incredible sight. It was the first time I laughed hard.

Zack was, after throwing the rock, beating up a large number of droids with - and I kid you not - other droids. He had two of them by both sets of ankles, one in each hand, and was just going nuts. He was tossing them around like rag dolls. Just swinging them like so much rope. Oh, Glow, it was funny. Especially when you lived fighting them in death matches. (*It looked like a toddler with an oversized beanie baby) With every swing, he took out 2 to 4 Scouts.

But he still needed to be covered.

Still giggling a little, I focused and made a stack of red light spears appear beside me. Taking one, I got in a good stance and threw. I nabbed one trying for Zack's back in its own back. I took another and did pretty much the same for about a few minutes. After that, there was a ring of metal bodies around him.

I walked over, healing my stomach and hand.

"Well," Zack said, panting lightly, "That was a learning experience."

"Don't tell me you're tired already?" I said. "They'll undoubtedly have a lot more than this paltry force."

"Really?" At this, I could tell that he was smiling under the visor. "So there's going to be an actual challenge later?"

"You could say that. Now come on, we still need to find the others."

(*This is a literary device to show something I will actually find out happened later, but occurred during the time of my escape)

"Sir," came from a radio in front of two people, watching the events unfold from atop a Stealth Carrier not yet released to the Atlas Army, "the target is about to meet with the others. Orders?"

"Incapacitate the trainees," said the first figure, a lanky man that had a whispering voice would remind people of a skeleton when seen or heard, "but after the target believes he has escaped."

"Sir, may I ask why?"

"I desire to see him grow more as an individual. He kept his emotions from us so well that we never suspected him to have ever wanted to escape, let alone felt so for years. Hence the need for him to think he has done so. He'll let his emotions show more, which will give us insight as to how he works."

"Thank you, sir. Proceeding with execution."

The radio clicked to show that the unknown talker was off the air.

"A rather cruel thing to do," said the second figure with a rich voice and stocky frame.

"I must observe all of his emotions," said the first. "That would include grief."

"But must you harm the young to do this?"

"I need the strongest reactions possible to understand their minds. You know this."

"I do. But this smacks of evil."

"Why do you think **I** ordered it and not you?"

"You're despicable."

"And you need me that way so that they may be strong. Now please excuse me as I watch them."

We got hammered.

I don't mean on booze, I mean we were put through probably the greatest fight of our lives. I never had to fight so hard, so long, or so adaptably. How I did not faint at any point afterwards is still something I can't explain. I don't know if the Dust in my blood helped me stay awake, I don't know if it was because of my training, I literally do not know how I stayed awake after the fight.

You see, while I and Zack ran through the forest, we came atop of a hill that overlooked most of the area around the Temple.

This let us see the army - ARMY - that was coming our way.

There were squads of twenty Scouts coming our way, each lead by an A.P. Groups of ten A.P.s were then lead by a van that held a mobile medical lab that housed a general, five troops, and three doctors. The doctors were there for when they planned to capture and dissect us. I still have the faded scars of where the doctors would repeatedly cut me so as to look inside of me. Even with my powers, the repeated slicing of my flesh made a permanent mark on my body.

There were eight vans. That math meant that there were eight generals, twenty-four doctors, forty soldiers, eighty A.P.s, and one-hundred-sixty Scouts. That made two-hundred-twelve against eight. (*The four Hunters, Me, Zack, Priest, and another that's about to be introduced)

"We are not going to win this," Zack said.

"Priest says that some Nevermores she controls are supposed to come soon," I said unenthusiastically. "The only question is how they'll arrive."

"Dribble in, they're a nuisance we can use as a distraction as we cut of their heads. All at once, we can fight them head on."

"I'd rather run as soon as we can."

"What, scared of a battlefield?"

"I'm scared of dying the first few minutes I'm free of them, not to mention what would happen if any of us got captured again?"

Zack nodded. "Fair enough. What do you want to do?"

"Find the others, get back in the pit, and use whatever you did to come here to get away."

"That last one will be tricky. My partner, Clarissa, is a Duster like us. She can use 'latent energy,' or something like that, to do crazy things. Hence the tittle 'Mage' when we were in ''The Program'.' She made a tunnel for me to run all the way here, but she said it used all the energy she could reach to make it and it collapsed behind me once I was out. I don't suppose you're much of a digger, are you?"

"Priest has half of a monster-large Taijitu that's still kicking. Maybe it can burrow?"

We would have kept planning if we didn't suddenly hear the cry of a few Nevermores. Looking back at the approaching army, we saw three of them coming from behind the force. They swooped down to attack, but were immediately shot down by all of the droids before they gained much speed. But the flaming bodies still caused some damage as they fell on the force.

"We might not need to fight," Zack said, a small tone of disappointment crossing his face.

"Come on," I said. "We still have to find the others."

"I hope you mean us, because I'll be seriously angry if you forgot about us!"

I turned around to see the speaker (*Cassy) and her group coming from the trees.

"Hey," I called, running over to them. "You all okay?"

"Yeah," said Cassy. "We just fought a giant robot thing, but we're good."

"Speak for yourself," said the orange-shirt guy. (*Joseph) He was out of breath and using his mini-lance-gun as a walking staff. "That thing took forever to stop moving."

"You may want to see this," I said, gesturing back to the hill.

They came up to the top of the hill and say the approaching army.

"What the hell is all of THAT for?" whined Joseph.

"A good-sized party for us to enjoy," Zack said.

"Who's your friend?" Cassy asked.

"Zack, a friend I meet while scouting the area," I answered.

"He's cute," said Haily.

I notice Cassy look at her in shock before Zack said, "I'm out of your league."

Coming from the other side of the hill (*But not in the direction of the army) came Priest and another woman. She looked like what you would think Priests sister would be like. She is a few inches shorter than Priest, has short, blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. Also, where Priest wore simple clothes, the other were extravagant. The general colors were deep blues and dark purples, but the thing that really drew the eyes were the inlaid patterns. They were the same color as the background they stood against, so they disappeared if not in direct light, but they somehow manage to change. When I first looked, I saw a detailed pattern of a dragon on her shoulder. The next time I looked, it was a noble warrior.

I looked at Priest questioningly and nodded my head to the new arrival.

"Clarissa, Zack's partner," she whispers.

"So what exactly are we going to do about the army that's approaching us?" asked Chaz.

"Run," I said.

"No," Priest replied. "We won't be able to outrun them, and they'll search everywhere for us, so we can't hide. We can only fight."

"What!?" Joseph exclaimed. "You want us to fight this?!"

"I thought Hunters were supposed to be made of tougher stuff," Zack said.

"They're trainees," I said. "And at any rate, Priest is right. We wouldn't be able to run or hide from them. So how do you guys want to do this?"

"I CALL THE COWARDS IN THE CARS!" Zack yelled way too loudly.

"I think we could handle one squad each," said Clarissa, "but Zack will be the only one to do any real damage to the cars without killing the occupants."

"Wait, why do we care about killing these people?" I asked.

"Any of the doctors were strong-armed into doing what they did by 'The Program', Kuraz," Zack said. (*Also, he actually said the words 'the' and 'program,' not the actual name of the group. I mark the phrase 'The Program' with apostrophes) "They are as much trapped as we were."

"Anyone want to tell me what you guys are muttering about?" asked Chaz.

"No," said Clarissa, "But here's the breakdown: We were part of a super-soldier program and are trying to escape, and all of that-" here she pointed at the mass of metal marching towards us "-is here to try and stop us doing so. They're completely ruthless and are not against killing bystanders to make sure we don't become discovered."

"I'm sorry," said Joseph, "I think I missed something. Aren't there usually opening credits before a cheap movie plot like this is introduced?"

Before we started arguing, I took of my left glove, made a small blade of orange, and cut across the palm to show them my golden blood.

"Lightning Dust is not fuse to me," I said in the hush that followed, "but part of what make up my cells."

I turned to Cassy, staring at my palm like the rest.

"That's why I glowed during the blessing thing you did."

There was a moment of silence, tense by the fact that the attack force kept getting closer.

"Well," said Chaz, breaking the air, "what do we do now?"

"Form up back at the Temple for now," Priest said. "We can plan and defend from there."

"I want to take out the vans as soon as possible," Zack said.

"I agree," I said. "They're the only way that they can transport us for any length of time, so if we get rid of those, that makes them fighting us pointless."

"Let's move as we talk," Clarissa said.

We started jogging to the Temple, making sure we didn't leave the Hunters behind. We discussed where weapons would be most useful, areas that may need to be demolished before the fight, and other strategies. The Hunters were really helpful, thinking up of ways to use our powers in tandem to maximize their effects. None of it could really have been done without Clarissa, though. Her Semblance of Wizardry allowed her to do almost anything. There were limits she had to abide by, such as only being able to use the energy around her in a 500 meter radius around to do things within a 50 meter radius around her, but there wasn't anything she couldn't do. The only problem she has is how much energy she needs to do whatever and paired with how much energy there is in an area.

"Perfect," I said when I heard the gist of this from Zack. "Does that mean she can do stuff with the weather?"

"Sure," Clarissa said, "but the more destructive it is, the more energy it uses. What do you have in mind?"

"Well," I said, "I _was_ thinking of a lightning storm, but that'd tax you. How about a thick fog?

"That's easy."

"Good. How fast can you make it happen?"

"About ten minutes, I can make about a hundred acres pure gray."

"I want ten feet of visibility, not ten centimeters. And can you make the fog mess with electronic senses, by any chance?"

"I can make it have its own energy signature, but only while I'm directly focusing on making it. If I have to defend myself, the energy will dissipate and they'll be able to scan."

"Then I want you and one of the hunters to stay with you inside of the temple."

"I'll do it," Joseph said.

"Alright. Haily, Cassy, Chaz, I want you to scout ahead. See if there's any terrain or fault in their strategy you can exploit."

"And you think they won't attack because why?" asked Chaz.

"You got passed them without even trying."

"What?"

"Sorry, I forget you're new to this. 'The Program' does a test where they drop you off in a wide area and expect you to figure out what they want you to do."

"Okay, number one, why the hell would they let you, people that they'd send an army to subdue, out alone to do anything without control: and number two, why didn't you escape the other times you were tested like that?"

"They do it to test the adaptability of 'the products' and their loyalty to 'The Program.' As to the second question, they encircle the area and kill anyone . . . how he said it . . . 'inconsequential and a danger to the asset.'"

There was a pause.

"I'm glad I didn't stay as long as I did," Priest said. "That was incredibly callous."

"I know," I said. "I was quoting what I heard from the first time I tried to escape. Now get going (*This was at the Hunters now) before you miss an opportunity. We'll attack when we either hear you fighting or when they're 100 yards from the temple."

Then a thought occurs as they leave the temple.

"Hey, Priest, what name did you choose?"

"What?"

"Well, Warrior chose Zachariah as his name when he escaped, Mage chose Clarissa, but I don't know the one you chose for yourself."

"I never chose a name for myself."

"Why?"

"Well, I thought that when I saved you, we could decide our names together."

"A little late there," Zack said. "He already decided on one."

"What?!"

"Yeah, and it's a goofy one to. Kuraz."

"Hey," I said, "I said that because I was on the spot and thought that I had to lie to protect Cassy. Remember what I just said about the other times I tried to escape?"

"But I had so many ideas for us," Priest whined. "I mean, I thought we should have 'craft' somehow in our last names since we craft light and it would be super cute, so I looked up different languages that had said 'craft' differently."

"Okay, okay. I just thought of a first name not ten minutes ago. I wasn't even planning on keeping it. There's no need for the drama, okay?"

"Drama?!" I don't know why, but Priest was getting really angry about this. Spots around her were becoming darker than usual, it was that bad. I stepped back, thinking she might start a fight. (*I now know she was only throwing a fit, but I have never been in an argument at this point. It was a whole new social experience I was in no way prepared for)

"OOO-kay," Clarissa said, stepping between us to diffuse the tension. (*Thank the Glow for that) "This is getting way out of hand. Can we talk about it AFTER we defeat the army marching on our dilapidated temple?"

"Yeah," Zack said. "You can finish your lover's quarrel once we're safe."

"Lover's quarrel?" I asked. (*Remember, still don't know what 'love' means at this point)

"Enough!" Clarissa said. "Joseph, I'll need to cast at a height so I can better see what I'm doing. Please follow me up to the roof. Zack, Kuraz, Priest, please space yourself evenly around the temple. They may try to flank us, so I want our sides covered until we know where the main attack is."

"Right. I'll stand by that half blocked entrance over there."

"I'll take the opposite one," Zack said.

"I'll stand guard at the pit," Priest said, "in case we need to make a retreat, I can protect the area with hard light walls."

"Zack," I said, "You ARE able to read a situation well enough to know when you can't currently win, right?"

"I never needed to," Zack said, "But I understand what you mean. If we become overwhelmed, I'll fall back with the rest of you."

"Alright. Get in position. You know the signals. Good hunting, everyone."

Once everyone had gotten into their position, I had time to think about everything that had happened so far.

I was about to be free or dead. 'The Program' won't allow me to live after this. At this stage of my development, if they haven't assured compliance and loyalty, they'd sooner kill me that put any effort into putting me under their control. They have now made it a fight for survival.

But that puts me at the advantage.

They had only ever fought to keep themselves secret or to retrieve me. I, however, have consistently fought to survive every single day of my life. True, in many of the tests they'd put me through, they may have saved me for further tests. But only whenever I'd show a new tactic in the original fight that they had put me in.

I had more experience surviving than they had.

Not to mention the Hunters. They may know what to expect from us Dusters, but the others will be our wild card. Or, at minimum, we have to make them think that they are. And their weaponry is something else. I've studied and even trained with a few melee guns, but I was never allowed to own any long-ranged weaponry because I'm 'already O.P,' whatever that means.

I looked through the opening in the direction of the oncoming battle. An odd nevermore would fly in and by immediately shot down from a dozen weapons, but the thuds could be felt from hundreds of yards away. I could only hope that they were at least doing some damage in death.

I started running battle simulations in my head. I needed to be prepared for every eventuality that may arise in the upcoming fight, or I may die. The rising fog Clarissa was making was appearing as I did this. It was slowly growing, but it was wide-spread. Far wider than I thought would be possible. I would have to kill Clarissa first if she turned on me.

As I watched the fourth bird fall in flames from the sky, I noticed two separate explosions happen at once.

The fight for freedom had begun.

 **Ch. 5**

"Zack," I yelled, "Stay 30 yards behind me as we run. I don't want us both caught in a trap like last time."

"Fat chance," he said. "I'd have been fine without you. You stay 30 yards back."

"Fine. Priest, stay here. I'll send a blue flare up if we need back-up."

"Got it. Be careful."

And we were off.

I stayed back as Zack 'nicely' asked me to. I would have argued on most other occasions, but we weren't fighting an opponent that would allow that kind of behavior. We had no time to argue.

So we ran through the forest at double speed, with me pushing off of tree trunks with one foot at a time like an armored ninja. Zack still ran on the ground.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"Do what?" I replied.

"Travel just under the branches."

"Safest spot in a forest. Ground attacks are at a disadvantage, I can jump into the branches if needed, and if someone is already in the branches, they lose the high ground advantage."

"And I'll bet it is fun."

"I don't know. I don't have a good concept of fun anymore."

"What?"

"Well, the last time I remember having anything like fun was when Priest was still in the program. That was over 14 years ago. So I don't think I know what fun is anymore. Now focus. The second we see the enemy, they will try to kill us or worse. Use everything you have."

As I said that, we suddenly appeared into a clearing.

Filled with the enemy.

I had no time to survey my surroundings as I found myself charging into an A.P. Twisting in the air, I slammed feet-first into its chest, which pushed the whole segment out of alignment with the others. While this _did_ leave the giant lumbering away awkwardly, it also made me get whacked by one of its shin segments further into the battlefield. (*Also, I lost track of Zack at this point, but he told me all about his experience after we were free to actually talk)

I crashed into a trunk of a fallen tree, looking up at the face of an Advance Close Combat Scout. These models are fully equipped with their single FTW - Fully Transforming Weapon - Which is capable of turning into anything the Scout deems necessary to complete whatever mission it's been sent on. And it's able to transform into so many things because its body IS most of the weapons.

It swung a hammer for my head, but I rolled out of the way and onto the ground. Changing from hammer to halberd, it then thrashed and slashed at me from on top of the tree trunk. I saw a few more Scouts coming from behind me, leaving me nowhere to retreat to.

Thinking fast, I charged my axe with light and slashed hard upwards to seemingly throw the droid off balance. It moved the weapon to the side, but I reversed my swing quickly and seemingly tried to go for it again. It missed, but my intended target was never the weapon.

It was the tree trunk it was standing on.

Using force light, I had a wave of gold push the newly cut out piece of the old oak that the droid was standing on. As it fell down, I diverted the head of the halberd with my shield and slammed the head of my axe into its chest. At the same time, I placed the helm of my helmet directly where the robot's head was going, obliterating its face.

Shrugging off the limp body, I turned to the approaching Scouts. Swinging my axe in a wide arc, I released the light I had stored in it. This resulted in a white, slashing force cutting through all three of the automatons.

But I was immediately attacked from behind with an explosion of cold that threw me from my feet. Once again spinning in mid-air, I managed to land on the base of an old tree stump, looking in the direction of the newest attacker.

"You troublesome brat," said my opponent.

"Good evening, Miss Shcnee," I said. "Or should I call you Winter?"

She was standing on top of what counted as a shoulder of an A.P. with heavy armor. This woman was the hidden hand of 'The Project.' The one who came up with the combat scenarios for me to complete, the one who watched as I endured torture for the sake of increasing my endurance, the one near the head of everything.

She wore her white hair in the usual bun and had her 'high-class' uniform on, with her cutlass and dagger on her hip. Her light-blue eyes looked at me with disdain.

"Don't you think you can speak to me in that tone, boy."

"Very well. How about 'Icy Bitch?'"

"You would dare to be so vulgar with me?"

"I would _dare_ to show you the disrespect you deserve. Do you really expect me to treat someone at the head of a group that had me brutally beaten regularly, subjects me to fight-for-my-life situations, and treats me like a tool with _anything_ approaching courteously?"

I started walking towards her. She sent another ice missile at me, but I batted it aside, my anger building and giving me power. It hit the A.P. she stood on, forcing her to jump down into the filth and on my level.

"Do you have any idea what it was like to be me? Knowing I shouldn't be living such a life when a bunch of others get to live free. I was always fighting, always surviving, never sure if I would live for a few more days or not. CAN YOU COMPREHEND SUCH A CONCEPT, YOU ICY BITCH!?"

A barrage of fireballs was the next response, but I detonated them by sending a wave of dark red across the area. She looked more frustrated than usual.

"Well, I will admit, your training has made me powerful. But I don't think you know just how so. See, I've been hiding my strength for the past seven years."

A large stone now, but I bashed it aside with a lump of orange like a slow gnat. She looked even more frustrated, actually showing teeth. (*That's a big deal. She never changed her expression except between annoyed and infuriated. This was a new step I hadn't seen before)

"It was infuriating. I felt like I was living in a world of cardboard and was being force to treat it like steel. Always taking care to use a minimum of force. Never allowing myself to cut loose and break something big, something important, someone 'necessary' in your eyes."

She pulled out her parrying dagger from her cutlass and tried to charge me physically. I didn't even attempt to block and allowed her to stab me through the gut with her cutlass and into the chest with her dagger, parting the armor I wore. She humped in dissatisfaction before I delivered the killing line.

"But now I have an opportunity to show you just how powerful I _really_ am."

Finally, a look of concern from her. I now had her scared of me.

Just like I wanted. (*Any fight with a Hunter is hard to win with just good fighting ability. To win a fight against a Hunter, you must make it a battle of the mind as well as a battle of the body. Hunters, by definition, generally hunt Grimm, which respond to negative emotions like fear, misery, and hate. This involves incredible focus to the target, surroundings, and their own abilities not just physically, but emotionally. However, they aren't use to battling emotional battles like I have. Every time I had taken a life, I had always questioned myself deeply about if it was the right move. I was telling the truth about my strength, let me be clear on that right now. But that made it more difficult. In needing to hide my power, I had to hold back my abilities. Meaning I had a limit of how fast I could move, how I can use my Semblance, and other such things. There were many times I could have knocked a person out if I had passed that limit, but because I could never risk it, I had to aim to kill when I couldn't knock them out at the level I was putting out. Those fights especially tormented me)

I put my shield and axe on their sheaths and grabbed her hands, which still held her weapons, in the blink of a human eye. As I spread my arms wide, it dislodged the instruments in my body. It also picked Winter up off the ground and brought her face close to mine.

"Don't die too fast," I growled, slowly healing the wounds I had exacerbated in myself. "I have sooooo many things I want to try, and you need to be strong enough to take it."

She kneed me in the groin, but I waited a full five seconds before dropping her to the ground. This seemingly showed that I took no damage. (*Case in point, I didn't really, as that's the one place that's more armored than anything. But the lack of a reaction after a usually painful attack installs fear into anyone. The amount and kind may differ, but can you seriously not be scared if you kneed someone in the groin and all they did was looked you in the eyes for five full seconds afterwards?) As she fell, I kneed her so hard in the chest, she fell on another tree trunk ten yards away.

"First item on the agenda!" I shouted, adding a little maniac edge to my voice in an attempt to plant more fear. "How fast can I really move?"

"Don't think you can fool me, child!" she yelled. "I already know your strengths and weaknesses. You can't scare me with cheap words!"

A direct challenge! I need to beat it to really start messing with her.

Combining my Aura with the Dust in my blood, everything around me appeared to slow down. Of course, I knew it was me that was speeding up. I ran the distance between us, making sure that I stopped right behind her. Before returning to normal speed, I made sure to lean close to her ear.

"REALLY?" I yelled, instantly going back to super-speed mode as she swung her cutlass at me. I ran to the front of her, then came back to normal speed.

"So you must know my top speed, right?" I ask as she still swung for where I was.

She swung again, and I super-speed dodged it again. I did this for around a minute, giving myself obviously less room to dodge each time I did so. She kept trying to swing faster and faster, growing more frustrated by the minute. I had to use all my willpower trying not to show how completely livid I was. Then I remembered I was wearing a helmet, so I went ahead and did so.

This woman was the lap dog of the very people that thought to raise me in hell while in view of heaven. There is no other way to put it. I saw how families live while in 'The Program.' I saw festivals and holidays. I saw sad days and sick days. I saw love being fostered, marriage processions act out, funeral held for the departed. I saw every major aspect of life that I was denied by them. Because I was their property, their tool. Because they thought to own me. I'm not sure any word in any language could properly sum up the feeling of rage, hate, pain, and misery I was feeling at that moment. Rage for the woman in front of me, hate for 'The Program,' pain at the loss of a normal life.

Misery for all the families, festivals, holidays, sad days, sick days, love fostering, and marriage making days I had ruined. Of all the funerals I had made. Of all the sin I had caused because I could never be strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to escape their control. I can blame 'The Program' for forcing me to do everything I did, but it doesn't change the fact that _I_ did them.

But no more.

I crashed my fist into the side of her skull, hearing the jaw snap from it's joint in dislocation.

No more 'Program.'

I followed with a flurry of punches into her midriff. No real aim in mind, just a releasing of rage.

No more being controlled.

I followed with a heel kick to the sternum as she fell, sending her twenty yards away.

No more needlessly taking lives.

Tendrils of electricity were sparking between my fingers as I walked to where she lay, coughing red and continuously failing to rise.

No more.

Flashes of light played around me, my Semblance losing control in my fury.

NO MORE.

I grabbed her by her hair bun and lifted her off her feet. She flailed, not using her Semblance for some reason.

NO MORE!

I grabbed for my axe, my anger tensing my muscles and causing me to do so slowly. She began to go nuts, but still didn't use her Semblance.

NO MORE!

I lifted my axe, preparing to end her life in one, final, strike.

"NO MORE! I SUBMIT! NO MORE! PLEEEAAASSSEEE DON'T!"

It was Schnee.

I saw her mouth move, but I hadn't realized that she had been saying anything until now. When did she start? Now? As I had picked her up? When I was walking towards her? Even before?

Does it matter?

I have this chance. This rare chance I may never get again. To end it. To end her. The lapdog of pain. I can finally kill her like I had wanted to for so long. So long under the whip. So long on a leash. So long in chains.

Should I take it?

What would this say about me? Wanting to stop killing, but still having to kill to get what I want? Still choosing it? Must I stop a life of sin with a final one?

No.

No more.

I twist my axe so as the flat side of it will hit where I strike instead of the cutting edge and brained her. She falls from my grasp, head bruised but unconscious. Thinking back, she had been talking ever since I had kicked her away. I knew it, but it didn't properly register until now.

This had always been a problem for me. As my nerves gained the greatest effects from the Lightning Dust, I've always had a problem with being 'easily overstimulated,' as it were. My emotions tend to get way far ahead of me at times, leading to moments of losing self-control in emotional tirades. It's a weakness of my power, I guess. While being able to see, hear, and do more than a normal human, I have a tendency to 'feel' more. (*The irony that a creature like me could still have emotions considering the life I've lived while a normal human would probably be dead inside is not lost on me) Anyway, I fought against the Scout again, but after that outburst, I don't remember much of it. I was fried physically, mentally, and Aurally, (*My Aura was at its limits) and just going through the motions after that.

However, I do remember how everyone else fought.

Zack was probably the most impressive. Though the fog had finally set in and was causing trouble for the robots to see through, I did get to see a glimpse of him fighting. Not like I had a choice in the matter.

I mean, he was on fire.

Literally.

It was explained later to me that when he gets excited by anger, battle lust, and the like, his Dust gets activated. Like how mine did when the electricity was playing between my fingers. His covers him in super dense flames, actually causing his own pressure system to go where he goes. This meant that he was the only one without the benefit of the fog covering his movements, as the fog would evaporate twenty yards away from him. He was so inflamed that nothing would catch on fire, but would instead instantly turn to ash and charcoal. I have no idea how his armor stayed in shape afterwards.

The robots had the worst of it. They had containment systems to help regulate the Lava Dust in their weapons compartments, but that only regulated the insides of their bodies. The second Zack got within ten feet of an A.P, its systems would fail, causing it to melt both from the inside and the outside. Scouts would become puddles at fifteen feet.

They adapted quickly though, and began attacking him from a distance. Zack was caught dodging for the longest time, and I had to keep fighting to survive myself, so I wasn't able to help. But then Zack found that lumps of burnt tree trunks were easy to grab and started chucking them at any droid that started firing on him.

I saw Cassy and the other Hunters fight together. It was . . . well, interesting. See, I hadn't fought alongside anyone in the longest time. I had only seen teamwork once after Priest 'disappeared,' and that was between two Hunters that were trying to kill me. So seeing them use teamwork was a whole new experience for me altogether. Cassy generally came in first and blinded the opponents with her staff while either Chaz or Haily attacked. Haily was especially dangerous, as whenever she went for a kill, she just jumped on the robots head, let her cloak cover most of it, and after a moment, jump off. But everywhere that the cloak covered was now gone. The marks were smooth, like somebody had simply to an eraser to a three-D picture.

Once Zack had taken out the first car, everything started happening fast. All the robots paused for a moment, which I realize now was that they were receiving orders. Then, as one, all the Scouts and A.P.s that were heading for us turned and started moving towards the Hunter.

"Their trying for a hostage situation," I said, now able to look from the cover of the Nevermore carcass I was recently hiding behind to protect from the cover of fire I was just under. I ran out and aimed to do silent kills until I got to where the others were and protect them.

But before I started my swing for the first automaton, I heard it go _k-cik_ , then a slow his.

I knew what that meant.

It was self-destructing with a near full load of Lava Dust inside of it.

I was a trap.

Not giving myself time to panic, I started focusing all the light I could to form an orb around me. I didn't focus on the color or where it was from, I just needed to make a shield that would protect me. I pulled from everything. There were parts where light didn't seem to exist anymore, I was pulling it in so fast. I kept pulling, my brain seeing things in slow motion as I ran closer to when the thing would explode.

Pull.

Pull!

PULL!

I was still pulling the light when the droid exploded. Luckily, explosions and lava give off a loooots of light, so I was able to form a protective orb just before anything dangerous could touch me. (*By the way, all of this happened in the span of a panicked second) But still, the sheer force of the explosion was strong enough to send me flying over a hundred yards away. (*Not even kidding. Those droids run on some strong stuff. I thought a meteor had hit for a second) At some point in the flight, I must have blacked out, because I don't remember the part of my sudden flight where I shot up.

I only remember a moment of weightlessness, then a slowly increasing falling sensation, then the crash of the landing. Thank the Glow I didn't break something important, or else I would be dead right now. On the ground of my protective bubble, I surveyed my landing site for danger and escape routes. Arms and legs spread around me in a position like a feral animal deciding to fight or flee, nothing showed any sign of immediate threat. I was in my own crater, the bodies of Scouts and dead plant life hiding me nicely from view. I was safe for now.

But there was a problem: I was trapped.

In my attempt to make a light shield that could block the force of the explosion, I had made it too solid. It wasn't fading away when I stopped focusing on it. If it weren't for it, I would be dead, but now I was stuck inside of a shining, see-through bubble that I did not know how to escape from.

At first, I was curious. I had never made anything with my Semblance that stayed around as long as the orb did. I moved to a crouch in my new shell and, after a moment, touched the sides with the palm of my hand. From what I could tell, the light was cool to the touch, but reacted a light in the form of a sudden rainbow discoloration wherever my hand touched, like a paintbrush with an oil that did not know what color to be. But when I tried to push through the orb, the colors would flare and dance like mad on the surface. It felt as if I were trying to push a section of strong glass.

I gave one area I hadn't touched yet a quick and solid punch. The area changed into a kaleidoscope of colors like the other area, but only exactly where I had made contact and stopped changing when I stopped touching it. But it held. I moved my face close to another clear section and breathed heavy on the bubble, to see if it fogged. It didn't, so I tried the newly colored areas. I got results then.

The only idea I had as to why this rushed shield was still holding when all my other assorted hard light creations usually faded in seconds was that it was still being powered somehow. I knew that if I made something red in a red room, it would fade slower than in a room of a different color. So since I had pulled from every strand of light I could mentally hold to make this new shield, it must be pulling from all the light around it to continue functioning. That would explain why it was clear wherever I hadn't directly touched it. The discoloration that I had made everywhere else must be from me mushing the strands of light together, causing them to overlap and mixing their wavelengths to new kinds of color. It would also explain why the coloration would disappear as I thought about this. As new colors, they didn't have anything to pull light like their own and soon vanished.

I tried touching the areas again, and though they still felt firm, I thought the area might now be weaker. I repeated a few more times, and noticed a small but definite change in the strength of the wall in the exact area. But it would not be enough to get me out all that fast. Especially if the walls are airtight. I can hold my breath for a while, but I needed a fresh source after the fighting I've been doing.

I decided to concentrate on the light again and see if I still had control over it. Focusing, I reach out gently and tried to draw a small dot of red on the surface. If I could do it with its own light, I could get out.

At first, the light wouldn't do as I . . . I'm not sure how to phrase this next part. As I commanded? No, that smacks of ego, and I'll have nothing to do with that emotion. Asked? No, because I can't take no for an answer. Persuaded? I guess, but there's more force behind it. Argued? That sounds better, but it sounds crazy to actually say. 'The light wouldn't do as I had argued it to.' Maybe told? That sounds about right. I mean, you can always NOT do what you're told, but you generally do so.

Sorry, lost in thought, I hadn't realized I had still been typing. I'm going to keep it in, though. I think it shows who I am a bit, and I want you to understand who I am. It's kind of vital, as I have big plans that not everyone will think is wise, possible, or even nice if you maliciously twist my words around. Point is, it's there, it's staying, and it's to help you understand me. (*It also helps me feel normal. I never got to relate to anybody, as the second anything like that started, the person would either be killed or get rescued without taking me with them. So I now have this need for being accepted that I didn't even knew I had until I was free. Let me tell you, it is a really weird transition period from instantly thinking 'how do I kill all of them' in a crowd to 'how do I get them to like me?')

So, at first, the light wouldn't do as I told it to. I hadn't had this problem in years, not since when I had first obtained my Semblance. I put more effort into it, and it gave away more, but still not enough for what I wanted. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and started feeling the way the bubble's light was acting, how it behaved. (*I don't have a better analogy for how the light was acting other than the one I'm about to say, and it doesn't even come close to how light actually feels and acts when I use it. However, I'm not that creative, so I'm just going to stick to it and hope for the best) Normal light, when I'm not making it do anything, tends to act like an old carpet: has its details up close, but blends in quickly when you move away from the source it came from. (*All things produce light, but to the eyes of a normal person, a certain amount is required to actually register in our eyes. If the item itself cannot make it, it can reflect the light around it into what most resembles it color. That's why everything turns shades of red from a red light instead of everything being red on red. But with my eyes, I see a much broader spectrum than the norm. And more accurately. I can actually see the waves of light energy as they float and mingle in the air. It was something I was born with, but whenever I think about it, I always think that what I see must be marvelous)

In this instance, a larger than normal amount of light was wrapping themselves in different directions like threads instead of the usual sheets they normally act like. (*Again, bad metaphor, but I got nothing else) I felt around more, astonished at what I had made in a panic. I had always been able to make light fold, curve, and even make multiple waves of color phase into each other to form a solid mass, but I had always had to work with the original shape of the wave. This was the first time I had seen it change size to fit my needs. (*Don't even ask me how I knew they had changed from their original shape without actually seeing or sensing them properly until now. There's no way on Remnant I can make you understand that without a few dozen physics lessons) I wanted to learn more, to see if I could do it again.

But right now, I needed to make it stop.

Pushing the tip of one wave (*Don't ask, you won't get it) through the wall of the bubble, I slowly started making a hole for air to come through. I focus back on my surroundings again before I made a mistake and allowed an A. P. or something to get the drop on me. Nothing around me beside the rusting droids and the dying plant life, so I continued. Just as I had made a hole about the size for me to crawl through, I heard running feet coming from somewhere. I poked my head out briefly to see what the outside of my bubble looked like (*Solid black, as it was pulling in light and not reflecting or shining any itself) and set a mirage that looked as if the orb were just an orb.

A large pack of Beowolves ran from the edge of the forest behind me and over my crater, running in the direction of the greater fight ahead. They must have been attracted by the battle. Grimm always go to where there are negative emotions, so it makes sense that a pack or two would come to the fight.

But then another, clearly separate group of Beowolves came across the clearing. Then some Alpha Ursa lumbered past. Soon, many different kinds of Grimm were jumping, running, slithering, and even rolling past where I had landed. I couldn't understand what I was seeing at first, there were so many. Why were so many running to the fight? The entire forest shouldn't have been THIS full of Grimm naturally. Were they ALL attracted by the battle? But if they came from the entire forest, something must have sent a huge sign telling them to come here. But what? The explosions were loud, but they couldn't reach far enough for these kinds of crowds.

Maybe it was me. In that fight with Schnee, I had let everything I had been holding in just vent through me. All that anger and pain and misery. I had never been so emotional. I mean, I was wreathed in lightning and making patches of darkness when I almost killed her. I didn't even know it was possible to have a Semblance go out of control in anger like mine did. I certainly never had lines of electricity play through my fingers.

In any case, this may be a good thing. With this number of Grimm coming here, I and my allies could escape in the chaos.

But first, I had to get out of here.

Letting the mirage I had made across the hole dissipate, I rolled out onto the indented earth. I made a simple Beowolf disguise with my Semblance and ran with the mass of Grimm, taking care to stay out of touching distance. I couldn't concentrate enough to make the light an actual barrier because my head was just a lump of pain at this point. So I had to make sure they didn't pass through the mirage I had made, or else I would be found out by the entire pack.

As I ran, the only upright Grimm in the entire heard, I tried to think about what I should do next. I couldn't fight for much longer, and I doubt that many of the others could at this point, either. We had to leave now as the area gets swarmed by Grimm. Maybe we could take one of the cars half-way to safety, hoof it the rest of the way, and then plan properly from there. I hope Zack hasn't taken them all out yet.

I get back to the clearing, and it is just absolute chaos. Grimm are swarming like conscious water, A.P.s are switching arms and legs just to stay standing, Scouts are weighing down larger Grimm with their limp bodies, and anything still standing is being torn apart by everything else.

And I had to fight through AAAALLLL of this.

I'm not going to describe what I had to do to get through this, as I have already told you before the fighting started. It was just mayhem. I cannot stress this enough. I fainted for the first time in six years without medication. It was that bad.

So, after the first part of hell on earth, I managed to find Zack. He no longer burned like a part of a sun, so getting to him was relatively easy. I mean, he was as jam packed as everything else was in that battlefield.

"Zack!" I yelled over the roar of everything. "We need to find the others and fall back! Do you know where the others might me!?"

"I saw them ten minutes ago eastwards!" he replied. "Follow me!"

We went through the crowd, every blow needing to kill around three to four things at a time, or else our lives would make up for the deficit. My arms were burning so bad by the time we found them, I was sure that Zack could make invisible flames and was doing so on my arms. The others had made their own small circle to fight on, and I saw that Priest, Clar, and Joseph were there as well. I then realized that the fog wasn't anywhere to be seen.

We kept pushing through, but my body was starting to give out on me. My arms were numb from repeatedly slicing Grimm and blocking attacks. I was getting slower and slow by the second. I couldn't focus on anything but the next thing that was attacking me, as my head was nothing but a cage of agony at that point.

But I pushed on.

I had to.

I learned a lot about fighting with someone I had forgotten about when I use to fight alongside Priest. I learned that if I moved to cover Zack more, He would move to cover me more. Zack was hard to help at first. Not because he made a lot of openings for enemies to attack him, but I had to get use to him almost hitting me in his fighting technique. His basis for fighting was to grab one thing, bash the hell out of anything near him with it, and then grab something else when the first thing was too dented, too small, or too limp to hit with.

(*I made a video version of this account at one point, and Zack described my fighting style at this juncture. I decided to keep it in for the moment, as I think it reflects his way of thinking a little bit while describing me at the same time)

Kuraz was a true combatant himself. Where I would usually obliterate my enemy with my power, he would strike quick and lethal. I had never seen another man lose no momentum when cutting through the sternum of an Ursa, no matter the sharpness of the blade. He did show effort when he used his Semblance, but he never stopped moving or slowed down. I thought, at times, he would be killed when a lucky paw slipped through his defenses or a bullet in a seam of his armor, but he would simply move with the new momentum, add it to his next attack, and heal whatever damage he had taken when given the chance.

But the chances were getting briefer and farther between. The mass of bodies and metal machines were slowing our progress. The only reason we were moving at all is because 'The Programs' battle bots were also fighting the Grimm, and they in term them. The chaos that day could never be understated. But in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.

And I had a very dark one to consider.

Should I leave the others and make it out of this place on my own, or should I risk my life for people I don't know or haven't seen in a decade? I was sure I could make it out of their by myself, even in my current state. I just need make a strong light wall/plow around me and run. But I didn't know what to expect when I got out of this field. The Grimm were still coming, but they were easy to deal with. I may lose a hand, maybe an arm, but I could get out of that. Anything else may have trouble with them, but that's not a guarantee of success.

No, if I didn't keep my current allies, then I would be isolated and weak. I need to find the others.

We trudged through the mass, our arms becoming heavier by the second. We were blessed with the benefit of knowing we were going in the right direction by Priests constant use of light. She mainly focused on healing the others as they fought, but the light she shines stilled made it hard for enemies to see and easy for us to follow. Around fifty feet away, Zack tries to yell over the fighting to the others.

Before he goes on, I need to say something real quick. You gotta understand that I am use to hunting, which requires silence above all else. Also, with powers like mine, I am very scary to people. So I'm not use to yelling over noises, because I was raised in a tribe where that could scare away prey and people alike.

So when I was able to boom across the area without a problem, I was the one that scared him for a second.

A costly second.

From his right, a being charged from the Grimm and straight into him. I was shocked, not by the suddenness of the creatures appearance, but the appearance of the creature itself. It was shaped like a man, bearing heavy, black plated armor as thick as my own. There were symbols etched into the surfaces of the metal, archaic ruins made of blue Dusts that steamed from the surface. The armor itself looked . . . decayed. Not rusted or badly forged, but as if the gear was actually dieing, being frayed at the joints and warped in places. The dark steel of the protective gear also seemed to absorb the light as well, causing a permanent shade to cover his being.

But it didn't do anything to hide his deformity.

He was literally made out of dead body parts. I am not making this up. It was easy to tell because his skin showed from under the weird lighting effect of his armor, and it was mismatched. But the really horrifying thing was that it was made with Duster body parts. (*A Dusters skin tone relates to the Dust in their blood. So white Dust makes pale skin, gold Dust a little yellow, red looks tan, excetera. His skin changed color from body part to body part) It was built around eight feet tall, but stayed hunched over while we fought. It was also lopsided, no side quick equal to the other, making a real embodyment of a macabre appearance.

The thing forced back Zack into the mass of Grimm, but the mass moved aside. Zack was forced deep into the crowd, getting lost from my sight for a moment. But as the thing appeared, the mass gave us a wide birth. Even the Grimm, who love death and negative emotions, could not withstand the sight of the foul creature that had bulldozed Zack away. Soon all of us were given a twenty meter radius of room, with the undead at the center.

"Well," a femanine voice said outside of the circle. "I guess it's just you and me, Paladin."

I turned to my left to see another Duster walking in on the other side of the ring. She was around five foot five, draped in tight, dark clothing, very much like what Clar wore. But everything about her appearance spoke of danger. Skulls of different sizes and animals draped many parts of her as a kind of morbid decoration. Gems of disgusting colors shined from the shade of folds and crevices, making a horrible aura of digusting green, puss yellow, and bruised purple surround her. The look of evil was greater enhanced by her actual presence, which oozed a lust of blood I had never wanted to feel for anyone. I was instantly back to one hundred percent fighting status, for to be anything else around this woman would be dangerous.

Durinf the lull, I saw the weapons they carried. The amalgamation carried a large, two handed sword, the sides covered with ruins that glowed a deep green, like that of swamp muck. The other held a dark purple orb in one hand and a dagger with an empty rod in the middle of the blade. It probably acted as a Dust Wand. Fill the middle tube with whatever Dust, and your Semblance will act accordingly. But what was strang about the dagger was that the tube was marked at intervals, like a measuring cup.

"Get off me!" shouted Zack, and he threw the beast straight up into the air. I didn't focus on how high it went, as all of my attention was on the female.

"Do I know you?" I asked as Zack got on his feet.

"No, but you will," she said, an air of complete ego tainting her every sylable. "I am designated Warlock 1, head test-maker of 'The Program,' and superior to all of those with Dust for blood. You and your little coup here have caused quite a rebelion here. It's rather charming, really. I especially loved how you made the Schnee woman beg. I honestly would have let you go at that point, but then you had to spare her life. Tsk, tsk, tsk! That just won't do, Pally. The head of 'The Program' and I want you to be a ruthless killing machine. Such a weapon cannot be allowed to show mercy at this late stage of developement."

"You know," I said, "I would find your tone threatening if your little goon wasn't recently thrown into orbit."

"I didn't toss him THAT hard," Zack said. (*I know now that he can actually do that, but at that moment, it really confused me. Which might have killed me if the next instant hadn't happened)

Suddenly, the walking dead thing fell from the sky flat on its face/

"See?" Zack said. "Still came down."

"Enough," sighed the woman. "Franklen, would you be so kind as to get up off of that ugly thing you call a face and prepare to fight, that would be lovely."

The ruins he carried flared for a brief second, then thing swung from its place in the dirt and pulled out its humongous sword.

"So I guess you don't want to leave 'The Program,' huh?" I asked.

"Why on Remnant would I want to leave 'The Program?'" she asked.

"Guess that's a no," Zack said.

"How about you, big guy?" I asked.

"Don't bother, light bulb," said the woman. "The thing you're talking to is not much more than a simple shell of better experiments laid to rest. Oh, that reminds me! I never introduced ourselves. I am Lilith Bronwen Daeva, and my pet here is Franklen Than Victor."

I saw the things eyes move toward her as his name was mentioned, but otherwise, he didn't move an inch in his stance.

"Well, I guess I'm - "

"Kuraz, yes, I know. I was watching as you were conversing with that little harlot. What a ridiculous name."

"Well, you forgot to teach adlibbing in your shitty tests."

"I'll be sure to fix that after I add your body parts to my toy."

And that's when we fought.

 **Ch. 6**

Zack took care of the big guy, his strength able to compensate for the brutes size. I rushed to Lilith, using my inherent Dust to add as much speed as possible to my dash. She was ready, however. As I rand, she waved her wand again, and the ground in front of me turns extremely hot, burning through the soles of my boots. I jumped high and saw that the wand now had another bar glowing on it, this time orange. I spun from the sky and delivered a full weighted over hand chop on her. She dodged and stabbed me in the waist game of my armor. Another notch in the wand, this time yellow.

She fired another fireball, forcing me to make a wall of red from the flames to block the rest of the deadly attack. Another notch of red on the wand. (*There's a point for me describing the notches, but that will be obvious later. Way later. Like, twenty chapters later. I'll tell you more of why this is, but I need you to understand that there IS a purpose to this)

I strike fast with a shield bash, which was blocked with a blue counterforce. A notch of blue. I spin with the force and go for a blackhand strike. I manage to score a small hit across her arm, drawing black blood. She snarled, wiped the blood on her blade, then came at me again. I blocked with my shield, but the blood warped the metal wherever it touched. I kneed her in the gut, then swiped a leg out from under her with the same leg. She pivoted on the other one and went with a backhand slap with the hand holding the orb. My helmet was grazed, but again the metal was warped where she touched me.

I jumped back and made the light around my armor more solid. Now she would hit my light armor before hiting my actual armor. I again went with a shield bash, but at the last second I jumped. Another counter force, this time green. I spun with it and delivered another counter backhand chop. However, now in the air, I use the expected block as leverage to flip over her and heel kick her solidly in the back. Then, pouncing on one leg, I follow with a shoulder bash between her shoulder blades.

She ducks under the blow, making me go right over her with my attack. As I get back on my feet, she point the blade wand at me. I see that there is now a black and green notch on the middle tube.

"Die," she says, and the colored notches all rush to the tip of her blade. Red, orange, blue, yellow, green, and black swirl around the tip in an elemantal ball of light before launching at me. I do what I can to raise a light shield up in time, but it won't be enough.

But as I make a wall of gold, a section of ground between me and the attack raises from the ground, making a new wall of charred Remnant that blocks the attack. The explosion was an amazing swirl of dark and vile colors. I know that that sounds contradictory, but as a guy who fights with light, I've learned that a bunch of ugly colors can make some incredible sights. It's not to saw that they inspire positive emotions, just that they can inspire awe.

"Sorry we're late," said Clar. "We were stuck on how to move through the frozen mass of Grimm."

I turned to see that Clar, Priest, and the younge Hunters were coming into the cirlce through a path of their own forging.

"She controls the other one," I said. "Take her out, you also take him out."

"What, no thank you?" Clar asked.

"I'll kiss you when we're out of here."

"Like hell you will," Zack and Priest said.

"Look, can we focus on the enemy Dusters for now, please?" I said, trying to get them focused.

"Wait," said Cassy. "If they're Dusters like you, why not ask them to join us?"

"Tried it."

"And?"

Zack was then thrown by the big brute at us, causing us all to dodge so as not to hurt anybody.

"That wasa summary responce," I said.

"Oh, you brought our renegade brother and washed-up sisters," Lilith said. "I'm ever so happy. Now I can deal with you all at once. Franklen, make us a party, would you?"

So said, Franklen smashed his hand into the grown, making his fist buried to the wrist. I saw a weird, moving shade run across his arm under his arm and pulse across the ground. After a moment, the ground began to quiver at certain parts. Cracks began to form in the solid soil. At one area, a tiny, bony hand began to poke from the ground.

All around, dead bodies were coming from the ground. From squirles to wolves, deer to birds, the buried dead were coming back to life.

"Hmph," said Lilith. "I've seen you make better gatherings. Then again, they were at cemetaries."

The limping carcases were given a wide berth from the Grimm and droids. I saw one dying Grimm get walked on by a small, limping squirle. Wherever the thing touched, the flesh . . . wilted. It didn't just die, it decayed at an extreme rate.

I heard a scream of pain. Turning, I saw Cassys leg get grazed by a mostly skeleton snake. The edges of her wound where it touched were black, the blood initially dark and disease-looking, muscle now visible.

"Priest!" I yelled. "I need you to focus on healing these wounds. Clar, give her some protection so she's safe to do so. Nobody touch these things bare-skinned. We all need to start getting out of here."

"You'll never escape," Lilith said. "His death thralls will follow you all the way to the other side of Remnant."

"We'redeadwe'redeadwe'redead," repeated Joseph.

"Fall back," Chaz said. "We're getting out of here."

Priest got to healing Cassy as Clar protected them. Zack got distracted in fighting the thralls, so I went back to fighting Lilith. If I knocked her out, it may get her pet and her pets pets off of us. I charge again, getting ready to hit her with the flat of my axe. (*Killing her was something I was going to avoid at all costs. Even if she was as bad as she described herself to be - making the tests, working with the enemy, loving the pain and misery of others - I was not going to kill what was essentially my sister. Remember, Dusters are made from machines, so family ties are rather strange)

But the behemoth blocked my path, scoring a hard hit across my shield arm with his weapon. The pain was intense. There was a coating of some deadly substance on the metal. I swear I felt grubs burrowing into my bones. I drop to the ground, gasping in pain.

"PALADIN!" Priest cried as my vision begins flashing black spots. Everything is momentarily blurry from the agony of my arm, and I feel my head resting in the cool dirt. I see Lilith sneering over me. She's proud that her little lapdog took care of me so easily. He's there as well, apathetic to what he has just done. He doesn't care about the state he has put me in or what will happen to anything around him.

But it can't end like this. I had barely even gotten free of 'The Program,' and I'm going to die like it never mattered. The others are too overcrowded to save me, as I lay here in complete misery. I can't accept this. I can never accepts this. I will not allow this to be my final stand.

I begin to focus on a last ditch effort. I pull every last once of power of the remaining Dust in my body and I put it all in my good hand.

"So this is it," Lilith says over me. "I thought you were suppose to be the best of us. Your scores were always the highest out of all the other 'Dusters,' as you put them. Even those of your own category never performed as well as you did. But I guess that was the problem. You never faced any part of the real world we didn't think you couldn't handle."

"You know," I weezed between labored breaths, "You talk . . . to much."

So said, I thrusted my hand at them and released all of the Dust energy I had been storing. Five bolts of lightning shot from my fingers. Three hit Lilith, one even getting her in the head. The other two managed to graze Franklen, but he shrugged them off as if they were nothing.

Lilith flew off a few feet from the manuver I pulled, landing face first into the ground. Frank sighed and went over to her. He checked her pulse and, finding her only knocked out, put her over her shoulder. He then turns to me.

"You can go now," he said, his voice pure gravel.

"You're not . . . gonna . . . capture us?" I asked.

"I don't care," he said. "But you may want to move as soon as you can. The Grimm were scared of Lilith, but with her knocked out, they'll become violent again."

He turned and walked into the crowd, given a wide berth by the Grimm. His thralls went back to being dead, and I pass out in pain, fatigue, and relief.

All in all, a hectic escape.

"He handled that rather well," said the bigger of the two in a sarcastic tone.

"He did, actually," said the other. "He didn't allow the fear a wound like that inherently holds control him and instead took measures to ensure that everyone would not be left defenceless of the threat, while at the same time dealing with the threat himself so as not to endanger his new friends."

"That may be, but he still lost the fight and is about to loce his life."

"I'll take care of that."

The skinny one raised a boney, white hand in the direction of the ongoing conflict. Shadow wrapped around his hand, swirling into an unseen vortex in his palm. Suddenly, he flicked his wrist and sent the dark essence into the air. If one payed close attention, they would have seen the black, now thin substance seep into the heads of the Grimm. The result was quick, effective, and very subtle.

The Grimm, as a whole, slowly lost the will to fight. Their desire for pain and negativity was nearly quenched, and so decided that they didn't need to risk their lives killing the few survivers to completely satisfy them. They could always hunt some of the fearfull wildlife that had ran from their massing.

As such, a large majority of the monsters left the field, no longer interested in the deadly quarry (*Who would be my new found friends) and walked off the empty battlefield. The ones relatively close to the others would not leave, but they were small in number compared to what was now leaving the feild.

"That should give them some reprieve," said the skeletal one.

"Let's hope so," said the other. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must reprimand your subordinates. They both know better than to act as they did."

"Do not go easy on them. She knows better than to gloat too much, and I would think he would have learned by now not to walk from a fight we tasked him with."

"I hate that I agree with you on this."

"Then use your anger as you tell them off. I must report our mission statis to Ironwood."

I woke up in a small shack made of old wood and a moss-covered ceiling. The bed I was in was a simple thing, carved out of a stone like a bowl and filled with dry grass, dead weeds, and more moss. The cover was a simple sheet of linen, and the blanket a dirty thing once cotten. It had a small table and a simple fireplace in one corner made of rocks and baked clay mixed long ago, with a small spit with which three pigs currently turned slowly. Priest was the one spinning the pigs, half asleep and in a pair of brown shorts and a red T-shirt. Her head rested in her free hand and her eyes were half closed.

I thought back to what had happened before I had woken up, as I usually do ever since 'The Program' started drugging me and leaving me in weird places. There was the mass of Grimm, then I fought Lilith, I organized the others to fend of Franklens thrall hounds, I used the last of my inner Dust, Frank walked away with Lilith, and . . . that's when I blacked out.

I rose from my bed, startling Priest from her stupor. She ran to me as I found that I was now wearing a plain-gold T-shirt and a pare of baige cargo pants.

"Hey, big guy," she said, "take it easy. You really taxed yourself at the fight. Don't try to move so fast."

"I'm rather use to it," I told her, turning myself so as to sit on the lip of my bed. I rubbed the linen to feel the softness of the foliage underneath. "Did you know I haven't slept in a bed for over six years? 'The Program' would instead leave me in an empty room, completely bare, the door such that it became another wall when closed."

"That doesn't surprise me. But how are you feeling? You've been out for a full day."

"I'm fine now. My nerves are very dependant on Dust, so if I use to much of what's in me, I go into a kind of coma until my body figures out how to work again."

"Well, still, take it easy, okay?"

"Oh, trust me, I plan to enjoy myslef by relaxing for a few minutes. But I gotta know, how did we make it out after I clocked out?"

"Well, after you blacked out, most of the Grimm lost interst in us and walked off. Not the ones near us when you fainted, but after we killed them all, the rest were long gone. So we took the opportunity to bug out and head back to Zack and Clars village, Refuge."

A distinct smell of burning pork interrupted our conversation at that point. Priest ran over to the spit and quickly put it on the table. She pulled a small cooking knife from her pocket and peeled the charred skin of the middle hog, the black pieces shattering as they fell on the wooden surface.

"Okay," she said. "Not my best work, but these guys are ready for consumption. Which one would you like?"

"I'll be nice and take the one you worked hard to save," I said.

"Ah come one, you must be starving! Here, take the biggest one. She should be ariving any minute now with some fruit."

"She?" I asked.

As if on que, the door opened and a small woman walked in. Around five feet even, she had bright blue eyes, short, white hair, and small but various wrinkles all over her face. A small bead of sweat ran down the side of her face as she held two large baskets of various fruits and vegetables under her arms.

"Oh," she said, a soft voice that instantly like the woman, "You're awake."

"Let me get that for you," I said as I got up from my bed.

"No no, it's fine. I got this."

"You've have been so kind as to feed me. Please let me do this small task to show my appreciation."

"Well, if you insist, then take both of them. My back is killing me."

So said, I grabbed the baskets and bring them to the table.

"Put them next to the table on the side closest to the wall," Priest instructed. "I need the room right now to finish the pigs."

As she worked on the meat, I walked over to where the new woman.

"I haven't introduced myself," I said.

"Don't bother," she said, "I know you don't have a name yet besides what they gave you, and unless you're as weird as that one there, you probably don't want to be called by the same name here."

"Fair enough," I said, and sat down on the other end of the bed where she sat. She constantly rubbed the lower part of her back. "Is something wrong with you?"

She gave a short laugh at that.

"You know," she said, "you being bigger than the other ones brought here by Zack and the others, I thought you would have more manners than that."

"How do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

"The way you asked that question was very rude. A better way to say it would have been 'Are you alright.'"

"Well, are you?"

She chuckled.

"I'm fine, my body is just a little too old for hard labor."

I used my Semblance to see the condition of her back muscles. It was an average case of overstimulation to a main muscle group with a side of stress, so I reashed over and gave her a quick shine of healing light.

"Well, I'll be," she said as the pain faded away and she did her best to see what I was doing to make it so. "I knew that 'The Program' made weapons out of people, but I didn't think that they would make an angel like you."

"I'm no angel," I said, "And I would ask of you not to say that name if you don't have to. Now, to go back a bit in this conversation, you mentioned something about there being others?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "She over there would not stop trying to find you. So when she was lucky enough to find another base that once held you and the others, she would storm in as soon as she thought she had the power and try to save others like you. So many of your kind have been in this room."

"Will I be able to meet them soon?"

As soon as I asked, her mood changed and became gloomy.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but whenever she found one willing to come with her, they would be too younge. They never survived more than a few days. It actually looked like you would become like the majority and not make it."

Waves of emotions rolled over me. She had tried to save others like me? But they never made it because they were so younge. I should have gotten out of there sooner. I shouldn't have kept her in fear of what they were doing to me. Why did I think staying in 'The Program' was ever a good idea? All that happened was a lot of death.

I looked at Priest as she made made dinner. She had a huge smile on her face and even radiated a soft glow, no doubt the result of her excitement and her Dust.

"Well," I said, "at least she's happy now."

"Yes," said the woman, "I have never seen her so bright before. You must really mean a lot to her."

"We were probably the closest thing to siblings in 'The Program.' Not only were we partners, but we also have the same Semblance. It's a unique . . . kinship that we share."

"Well, I'm just glad that you are awake and well-rested. I don't think she could have taken it if you had died."

"Dinner's ready!" Priest said. "Now stop talking about me and eat this wonderful food."

"Yes, ma'am," I said as I went to eat at the table. "Oh, Priest, can I get any Gold Dust anywhere nearby? I'm going to need to refuel on that as well."

"I got a for you right here," she said as she took a glass bottle of the magical substance from another pocket.

"Thank you," I said as I took the bottle. I grabbed a plate, filled it with all kinds of food, sprinkled a light coat of Dust over it, and chowed down.

"I still can't get over the fact that you straight up eat Dust," she said. "I would think that would be lethal."

"For normal people," I said, "it is. But our bodies run on this stuff, so we had do have some natural way of absorbing it."

"I've been meaning to ask you," Priest said, "when I looked into your body after you had fainted, I saw that they had made a lot more operation on you. If I'm going to heal you in the future, I need to know what else is in you. You know, organs and chemicals and such."

"NOT while I'm eating," the woman said. "Wait until I've left the room once I'm done."

"Okay," I said. "So, Priest, you've been out of 'The Program' a lot longer than me. What's it like?"

"Oh, you'll love it. No walls if you don't want any, free to move as you like, do mostly as you please, and sooooo many tasty foods."

"Do mostly as I please?"

"Well, if you try to kill anyone, people would try and stop you."

"True. What are people like?"

"People?"

"The only ones that talk with me would only tell me what I had to do or talked about my statistics. What to people outside talk about?"

"Would you please not talk with your mouth full, child?"

"Yeah, it's a little gross. But as to your question, people talk about lots of things. They talk about movies and music, book and comics - do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I got a basic teaching in arts, but I've never actually listened to a full song or read a full book."

"Oh my Light! I have to lend you my copy of 'The Story of The Seasons.' It's a wonder fairy tale of what to hope for in the days to come."

"I'll hold you to it."

The conversation continued pretty much like that for a while. I had some of the best food I've ever eaten, I got to talk with an old friend - it was the best time of my life. But there was only a limited amount of food at the table, so we wrapped it up when all the plates were empty.

"Priest," said the woman, "Please take care of the plates. I need to go babysit Melissa's children as she goes out hunting today."

"Tell Nick I said hi," she called as the woman walked out the door.

"So who was she?" I asked, never getting a name from her.

"That was Malinda. She acted as my mother when I got out. Hey, since I'm going to go through the town to get to the river, why don't you come with and I can show you around?"

"Well, I got nothing better to do. Let's go."

I walked out the door and saw the town.

It was a small village, the houses made of the same materials at the hut I walked out of. There wasn't a real order to how the homes were spread out, but it wasn't completely random, either. Pathways between houses were made from the constant tread of the villagers, who mostly wore the same kind of clothes as me. I realized that I had forgotten to ask Priest a really important question.

"Where is my gear?"

"Oh, Zack took it to the blacksmiths shop where he works. He's been holding on to it for you."

"Can we visit his place along the way. I feel . . . exposed without my armor."

"Wow, look at the hunk over there," I heard a girl say as she walked past. She was around five foot five, had short, black hair, tanned skin and dull green eyes. "What I would do to him . . ."

I was instantly on alert.

"What would you do?" I asked her as she walked past what counted as a front yard.

She started at my question, then hurriedly walked off while averting her gave from me. I was about to chase her when Priest put a hand on my arm.

"Paly, stop," she said. "She meant to malice by it. She was actually complimenting you, albeit in a selfish way."

"Well, she should be carefull about what she says," I said. "That sounded like a threat to me."

Getting close to my ear, she whispered what she _really_ meant by what she said. I reflexively blushed, but otherwise reacted as if she explained a double entondra.

"Oooooh, now I understand. But why did she get imbarassed when I called her on it?"

"Because she was talking to herself, not you."

"But if she's saying it out loud, wouldn't that mean she doesn't care if she's overheard?"

"Apparently not. I know it's weird, but even if your hearing was normal, some things are said without a desired reaction."

"That seems rather pointless."

"I know, but stuff like this happens out here. Anyway, let me show you around."

At that, we walked through the town. Well, I guess it could have been called a small city. There were buildings that were for specific purposes, like a weapon shop and a preserve store. These places were made of thick stone, the thinnest being around a handspan thick. The doors were also made of metal, and swung on large poles rather than seperate handles. All of them had submarine-like locking mechanisms.

Zack's shop was no different in design, but the actual look of the place confused me at first. I know about different kinds of blacksmiths, so I knew a lot of different kinds of forges fore weilding the hot fires a smith would need to craft such quality materials. They generally have a large, bulbous room so as to keep the large furnaces for keeping intence heat, or even a large, deep firepit outside of the buildings themselves. But as I walked up, neither one was visible to me. I stopped not that far from the building and asked about the shop.

"Zack doesn't need a furnace," she told me. "He just increases his body's heat until it reaches the tempurature he needs, them molds the metal with his own hands. It's really something you must see to believe."

I believed her. I had seen how hot Zack had gotten in the fight, causing flesh to burn at ten paces. So there was no doubt in my mind that he could bend metal like that. But I had no idea where he would do the work. He still needed a place where he could heat up without burning anything. But there was nothing outside for it. So where did he work?

We walked in, and I had an answer. We had gone inside of the largest furnace I had ever seen. (*I mean large for what it actually was. It was still pretty cramped when compaired to an actual living space. At least in terms of height, as my hair touched the roof when fully standing) Me and Priest had to make our own light bubbles just so we could keep cool. Even then, the heat was pressing down on us, baked by Zack as he worked in the middle of the room. He was working on my axe, reforging it with nothing but his hands. It was like watching clay being formed in a dry heat sauna turned way to high.

I was stunned at first as I saw him work. It wasn't because his arms - bare for his work - glowed bright red as he morphed the metal as he worked, but it was because he was working on my axe itself. I didn't know what to think of it. On the one hand, that tool represented 'The Program' and every evil deed that I had ever done. On the other, I had bonded with the weapon. It was an extension of my own body, I had used it so often, and had saved my life many times more than I had killed with it. Was I okay with him salvaging it for whatever he wanted?

After a moment, I decided that it was fine. If he could give the thing new purpose, all is the better. I don't want to keep anything from 'The Program' if I don't have to.

I saw my armor and shield in a corner where a small vent let cool fresh air come from an undergroud source. Since heat rises, it made a kind of sense that it would be there and not in the roof. (*While normal carbon monoxide is lighter than air, Duster lungs also attach a small particle of used Dust onto it, making it a little heavier) But before going to it, Priest called out.

"Hey, Zack! We're here for Paly's ge - what are you doing!?"

"Oh, hey!" he said. "How you doing, Dreaming Huntsman?"

"Never mind that," Priest said. "What are you doing to his axe?"

"I'm making him a new weapon. What else?"

"You know you need to ask him before you start messing with his stuff! What were you thinking?"

"He didn't want the blade."

"Why would you think that!?"

"Didn't you see the shape it was in?"

"Yeah, so?"

He paused for a second to think of something. (*I should mention that I hadn't even considered the fact that I owned the stuff when thinking about Zack messing with it. I had never actually thought of the gear as 'mine,' just 'The Programs.' So the fact that Priest was making a fuss about it threw me off for a bit)

"Sorry," he finally said. "I forgot you don't work with weapons like me."

"What's that got to do with anything?" she said.

"Well, when you work with weapons and armor for so long, you can gain an estimate of what kind of person holds it. An example would be that if saw a man with a broken blade, you can guess that he jumps into situations first and fights with force. With his blade, it was obvious that he didn't want it. It was only ever repaired by machines. You could tell by how the reworked areas all had the same pattern of repair on them."

"He's right," I said. "Though I only realized it a little before you two started talking."

"Well," she said, "If you're fine with it, then I guess I was in the wrong."

"No you weren't. You didn't have enough info to make a wrong move, just an incorrect one."

"What's the difference?" Zack ask.

"Wrong, in this context, mean it didn't fit with her moral sode. Incorrect means that she did something that didn't have the desired outcome. Anyway, will you be needing the rest of the gear as well, or can I take it?"

"Oh, take it. It suits you too well."

"I don't know," Priest said as I bubbled the gear (*It was too hot to touch, so I used light) and brought it over to where I was. "Wouldn't you want something lighter? Something that gives you more speed and agility?"

"Not really. The armor is light enough for me not to be impeaded, is stronger than most metals, and I have ways of increasing speed and agility with no problems."

"Okay. Well, we'll leave you to your work, Zack. I'll be showing Dipsy the town."

"Alright," he called as we went through the door. "See you at the ceremony!"

"Right!" she exclaimed as I shut the door. "I had forgotten about that!"

"The ceremony?" I asked.

"Yes! Paly, at the end of the day, there's going to be a small ritual of manhood for all the other boys coming of age. We need to get you to the Headman fast."

"Which way?" I asked, taking this as seriously as if we were saving the boys from certain death. (*For all I knew at the time, we were)

"Follow me," she said. "I know a shortcut to the stage."

And so we ran. I saw a lot of thing not normally seen in a city tour. I saw the fields of small farms as we ran in the middle of them. I saw the dirty result of tightly spaced of houses up close and, in one case, personally. We vaulted over fences, dodged through houses, and leaped over ponds. at one point, we climbed up one building and ran across rooftops. But we arrived to the stage on time.

The stage was just a raised platform of stone on the base of a wide, old tree stump, the corners supported by rusted metal rods in the ground. The thing was about twenty meters across on every side. In the center, a man with a short, white beard, thin wrinkles, and glasses sat at a small, wooden desk with a line leading to its front. The line was mostly younge people, probably around my age. There were parents with a rare one every now and then.

"Get to the back of the line," Priest told me.

We got there and waited. I began the slow proccess of cooling my gear as Priest figited.

"So what is this ceremony?" I asked as I seperated my chest piece from the pile with care and fanned it with a small green turbine. (*Not as noisy, but still had simular power)

"It's this villages way of respecting the moment when someone becomes of age," she explained. "When someone is of the age of eighteen, they go through a small ritual that, for them, makes a boy a man."

"What exactly is this ritual?"

"Later in the day, while the sun it setting, you will approach the Headman, the leader of this village and the one we're about to talk to. He'll have you kneel, say some lines of 'power,'" here she uses quotation fingers, " and will ask you to state your name for everyone else to hear. He'll say a few more things, rub your head with an herb or Dust 'the spirits' tell him to use, say a few more, and then you respectifully leave."

"I wonder if I'll glow again."

"You will. Zack and Clar did when they went though the ceremo - wait, again?"

"Yeah. When I captured Cassy for info, we had a bit of a weird conversation and she did a 'blessing' (*Now fingers that time) thing and I glowed. I glossed over it when I cut my hand to her."

"Oh yeah, you did mention that. Well, you will."

"Okay."

We would have kept talking, but we were finally at the desk of the Headman. He was writing something down on his paper as we approached. A little mirage showed me that it was the names of all the people that had come before us, plus some basic information about them, like family ties.

"State your name?" he said before looking up to see Priest. "Ah, Priest! Glad to see you. Uh, is this the one you saved?"

"Yes, Headman," she said respectifully. "This is Paladin. We're here to participate in the ceremony."

"Good to hear. And what a man he will be. No wonder you've been wanting to save him so badly."

"Headman!" she whined. I just stood there, not understanding what he meant by the last statement. (*I know now, though. Heheh)

"Well," Headman said as he got up to shake my hand, "to introduce myself properly, my name is Hedmund Croutch. I do what I can to keep this place safely running."

"Hello, sir," I said, putting my armor down and shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Yes, well," he said, looking behind me to look at the long line of people behind me, "Sorry to cut this short, but I'll have to talk to you after the ceremony."

"Yes, Headman," Priest said as we walked away from him. "We'll see you later."

"Why do you call him Headman when his name is Hedmund?" I asked as I put on my chestpiece.

"Well, the kids thought of it. Since his name sound like 'Head man' and he's in charge of the village, we gave him that nickname. Now come on! let me show you around."

And that's how much of the day went after that. The buildings were a mix of wood and stone, though the stone ones were primarilly forbusinesses like groceries, tech, and Dust, while wood was mostly for homes and inns. It was beautiful, really, if with a constant theme of discord in how everything was organized and built. Priest told me of everything and everyone we saw. I asked a few questions here and there, but I mostly focused on what was around me.

"We need to think up names for the ceremony," I said towards the end of the tour.

"Yeah," Priest said. "I never really liked my name. What do you want to be called?"

"I know I want Kuraz for my first name, but I don't know about the others."

"Why do you want to keep a name like that?"

"Because I was called that in the first conversation I've ever had with someone outside of 'The Program.' What about you?"

"I was thinking Jalen."

"Isn't that a boys name?"

"Unisex, actually. But we each need two more, don't we?"

"Yeah. Know anywhere we could look up names?"

"I left my Scroll at my place, but we're not far. Let's head over there and we'll look some up."

"Sound battle plan."

And so we went to make a name for ourselves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ch. 2**

"So how are we going to find my friends?" Cassy asked.

"We'll just head to the Temple, since they're heading that way, anyway," I said.

"Shouldn't we try to meet up with them _on_ the way to the Temple instead of _at_ the Temple?"

"No, we would just waste time looking with no guarantee of finding them. We at least know that they'll be there at some point."

"Good point. . . Soooo, why are you all the way out here?"

 _Crap, I always forget to plan for this_ , I thought.

"I kind of live around here," I said, and instantly berated myself for saying such an obvious lie.

"Do you mean the nearby village?" she asked.

 _I can't say I do, since I wouldn't know anything about the place. What else can I be?_

"No, I'm from a nomad group that came here recently," I said.

"Oh," She said. "I thought they would stay away from the large Nevermore nest."

"We're kind of a warrior group. We're actually more likely to go towards danger rather than veer away from it."

"Well, where are the rest of them?"

"Well, we just arrived, so we're spread out mapping the area."

"So we'll find more of your friends along the way?"

"No. We aren't allowed to interact with each other while at this stage. This way, we don't make the habit of trusting each other in analyzing areas and are less likely to miss something somebody else missed."

"So why did you take me away from my group?"

"I needed to know who you were without raising too much suspicion. You see, my clan has recently gotten into something of a war with another group. Since I'd never seen you around the gatherings, I thought you might have been part of the other clan. So I nabbed one of you when the opportunity struck to do so without it looking like an actual kidnapping."

"Okay. One more question: why did you choose me as . . . well, whatever I was back at the tree?"

"You were a hostage at that point. As for why I chose you, it looked from what I could see of your group that you are the weakest of them."

She nearly tripped at that.

"WHAT!?"

I had to stop myself from grabbing my axe, much less cutting here head off. She was loud.

"HOW DO I LOOK LIKE THE WEAKEST OF OUR GROUP!?"

"Well, your clothes are in no way something to wear on a Hunt. You carry yourself with no clear focus on your surroundings, you had no real weapon on you when compared to the gear the others were carrying, and, frankly, you look like a model."

"Ah - wait, I look like what?"

"A model. Models don't fight, they pose."

"I-I don't know whether I should smack you for saying that."

An Ursa (*A bear type of Grimm) suddenly busted out of the forest a ways in front of us. It did the usual roaring and intimidation before charging towards us. Cassy instantly went to a fighting stance, her staff head glowing as she readied herself to kill the Grimm. (*Not bad, but she would have been caught off guard if she was attacked from the side like that)

"Stand back, I got this," I said.

"What?" she asked.

I stepped in front of her and braced my feet for what I planned. Cassy looked like I was insane, but kept still as the Ursa came at me. Just as the thing pounce, I threw the punch I had been building up with my Aura. I clocked the thing so hard, it bounced of a tree.

It didn't get up again.

"Okay, let's go," I said.

"R-Right," she said.

We walked through the rest of the forest with no incident. Mostly because of what I did. See, Grimm have a basic intelligence. No more than a typical dog, but dogs understand when they're outclassed. With that show of power, I effectively showed that I'm the king here, and they should stay away if they want to live.

"Soooo, what were we talking about?" I asked as we kept walking.

"Oh, nothing important," she said, a little nervously. (*I guess I scared more than the Grimm with that show)

I decided not to push the subject.

"Alright," I said. "So who are the others in your group?"

"Well, Chaz is the one that leads us."

"He was at the head of your group, right?"

"Y-Yeah. Were you watching us?"

"For a bit."

"Well, that's a little creepy."

I shrugged. (*At the time, I didn't think spying was anything different than looking at someone)

"So, anyway, Chaz leads us. He's a little apathetic, but not enough for many people think he doesn't feel anything. Fair warning, if something is his, and you know it's his, do NOT mess with it without asking him. He will go nuts."

"Dually noted."

"Joseph is the other guy in our group. He's a goof, but I've yet to see anyone lay a single hand on him in a fight. He jumps around like a frog and is as agile as a monkey."

"Got it. What about the girl?"

"Oh, Hailey. She's . . . well, she's secretive. Honestly, I don't know anything about her, other than she's always eager to complete a mission or get in a fight, but not in a hot-headed way."

"Alright. That's good to know."

"So what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. I never even got your name."

 _Name_? I thought. _Right, people have names. Well, I can't say its codename Paladin. What would be a good name?_

"My name is Kuraz," I said, remembering a doctor that was nice to me. I haven't seen him in years, however. Probably dead, since I was getting close to him. They never liked attachment at 'The Program.'

"What's the name of your nomad group?"

"No name. We're just a group that finds Grimm that would kill normal people, even Hunters, and fight them. Test our limits and all that that."

"Well, what are your interests?"

"Not sure. I've only ever fought since I was born. Not much else."

"It shows," she said, and when I turned to pay more attention to what she was saying, she was looking at my armor.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Uh, nothing," she said hastily. "So, you fight a lot?"

"Yeah."

". . . What have you fought?"

It basically went like that for a while. (*Sorry if I rambled on in nostalgia when writing the dialogue) For a Hunter, she was rather chatty. But I liked that. It was the first conversation that I've ever had with a person that wasn't about pleading for their life, reviewing my skills and operations, or what I needed to study next. I regret having to lie to her the whole time, but I wasn't exactly free to talk to people about being a bio-weapon. That usually ended with somebody killing the person I talked to and having me forced to do more advanced pain training.

We got to the Temple without a problem. I could see Cassy's group in the twilight, their camp fire sticking out like a sore thumb with my vision.

"I guess we now go our separate ways now," I said.

"What?" she replied? "No, please, come join us."

"Nah, I'm just gonna hop inside the nest to see how big it is. Later."

I didn't really wait for a response. I just walked away without saying anything else. Not because I HAD no manners, I just didn't know WHAT manners were then. I do now. Heck, I've gone through textbooks of what they are and how they came to be. (*You may know that your mom is wrong when she tells you to keep your elbows of the table half the time. You can put them on there if you're talking with people, but not when in the act of eating)

I'm off topic. Anyway, I went a ways with my tried and true tree swinging method. I aimed for what I guessed (*Correctly) to be the old entrance when this place was in use. There was some rubble, but not enough to actually impede my progress.

The entire inside of the building wasn't there. It was just a large hole in the ground everywhere that there should have been an inside to the building. It was as if the outside of the temple was nothing more than a soap bubble over a sink drain. (*And just as structurally sound, to)

The inside was like a pit with no bottom, even with my enhanced eyesight. Throwing a rock to where I thought was the middle, I heard a hollow 'thunk' that was it dropping onto the bottom. About 40 seconds after I threw it. That made it pretty deep, but I couldn't properly tell if there was any large nooks or hollowed on the sides of the whole for a Nevermore nest to be situated.

My only option was to climb down and see for myself.

Now, to fully explain how I was able to climb down a dirt wall by jabbing my hands and feet into said wall, there are important details to keep in mind. First, when the dirt is loose, you have to pretend your arm, from the elbow to the hand, is a spike and stab it as deep as possible into the dirt. At minimum, you should have the dirt halfway up your arm shin (*IDK what it's really called, and seeing as I was operated on by doctors while conscious constantly, I'll assume you don't, either)

Next, if the dirt wall is very firm, like a strong mix of clay and asphalt to make a natural concrete kind of substance, it is possible to use only your fingers to grip on it. However, your grip must have the competitive power to hold a basketball with one hand, facing down, and not even be trying. The wall must also be gripped in the same way. No stabbing into the wall this time.

Lastly, never trust anything that looks like an embedded boulder unless absolutely necessary. They are rarely secure enough to hold your actual body weight. After that, the rest is regular climbing tips.

Anyway, I must have gotten as far as halfway down into the pit before I noticed the wall was beginning to curve away from me. It was similar in shape to an Erlenmeyer flask, (*The one cup that looks like the bottom half is a pyramid in chemical laboratories) and I was on the inside.

Getting a little lower, I then stopped and decided to face a little vertigo.

I focused on making a small, but strong, ball of white light appear 10 feet below me. I slowly had it float down to see how much farther I had to go.

It went down 100 feet before it shined on the bottom.

The strain of hanging on tight to a wall while willing an orb of light 100 feet from you to shine is like holding on to a jungle gym with one arm at a 90 degree angle while using the other arm to hold a large feather still in a small storm. So I had to let the ball dissipate so I could climb lower and see what was at the bottom then.

Just as I climbed off the wall, I hear something large move in the space at the bottom of the pit. However, because of the slightness of the noise, the seeming largeness it entailed, and the size of the pit, I had no clue where the noise actually came from.

I stood still for minutes, making sure I was safe while trying to pinpoint the sound. When I felt enough time pass, I made a small ball of soft, blue light - no more so than a baby baseball - float 10 feet above me. (*Blue travels farther than normal light while blending in with darkness. This way, I barely made any light, but I could see tremendously better.

No Nevermores where here, but there were a large number of nests strewn about the area. Each nest was the size of a small house, each spread at least a block from each other. Most of them had an egg or two in them, each the size of a large bed.

But that wasn't the scariest thing there. A King Taijitu, (*Two sided snake Grimm, one black half with a head connected to one white half with a head. The digestive concepts of this thing are a nightmare to think about, and it doesn't look nice, as well) the largest probably ever, was in the center of the place. The white head was visible, and it was so large, it could have swallowed ten of me whole without trying. It slept, sometimes its tongue poking out silently to smell the air.

But the strangest thing about it was that, on closer inspection, it wasn't a normal King Taijitu. It only had one head and a stump where the other black half would be. It wasn't a new wound, so a Nevermore didn't bring it like this. In fact, the stump was mostly healed over, so it must have had it for years. But how did it get here, then?

A noise had me immediately dissipate the blue light, putting me back in the dark. But not for long.

It's going to be hard for you to imagine this, but there is no other way I can put what I saw into another sentence. Please bear with me on this.

A figure walked out of what I would later find to be a side tunnel, the exact size of the King to crawl through. Though the entire chamber was in shadow - the light above mostly still blocked by the Temple - the figure was a pure black wherever you looked. Imagine if black crayon markings were in front of a sheet of black construction paper. It wore robes that hid most of its build, but it was almost as tall as me, extremely lanky, and had a hood to hide its face.

It was clear, however, that the person was using some sort of power to make themselves completely black.

 _So_ , I thought, _seeing this persons' height, power to hide himself, and where he came from, I think it's safe to say that I was sent here to capture or kill whoever this is. But what's his connection to 'the project?' Why the Nevermore nest? And why is such a giant but obviously crippled King in here? So many Nevermores in one place I can buy, but Grimm don't usually pair up with different Grimm._

"Soon," said the figure, at least telling me that she was a female, "I will have what I need to pay them back. We shouldn't have been raised - shouldn't have been BORN - but they'll pay for their tampering with life. And I might save him. After 14 years -"

She stopped suddenly. I held my breath, thinking she may have heard me.

"Bof," she muttered, then ran back the way she came. I thought to give chase, but she didn't know I was here yet and I wanted to keep the element of surprise until the last moment.

 _Okay_ , I thought, _think over what she just said. 'I will have what I need to pay them back'; she's after revenge, and since she walked in here with no fear, the Grimm must be her tools to do so. 'We shouldn't have been raised'; she may be some product of science like me, and she is either not alone or knows where others like her are. The 'tampering of life' comment supports this. 'And I may save him'; she didn't sound that old, so she's been wanting to help someone for a while. '14 years,' she said._

Something scratched at the back of my head, trying to make sense of what I had seen and heard. Instead of pushing it off to the side, I closed my eyes and focused calmly on what I knew.

 _Shadow powers, tall, girl, escaped something, Grimm, 14 years, life tampering, revenge, mutters to herself -_

And it hit me.

It was Priest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Ch. 3**

We had meet when we were young and had just gotten our semblances. We were the only 2 in the entire project that had the same ones. However, my Aura was balanced in physically boosting my body and being useful as a projection ability. Priest always blurred the line between the two, but it was obvious that she was better at projecting light than I was. She learned how to use the effects of absorbing light to create an utter blackness. By absorbing all the light right in front of a person's face, she both blinded an opponent and drew power to project light. (*I learned how to do it, but only a year after she figured it out)

Also, about 14 years ago, she stopped coming over to my testing area. I thought at first she was being put into more focused training, her skill with light earning her the codename 'Priest.' But then, one day, a doctor put me in my first 'interrogation resistance training,' demanding I tell him where she went. I was annihilate that day, and also depressed to learn that I was never going to see her again.

We didn't even know the word 'love' while in 'The Program',' but when I learned what it meant, I knew that she and I had loved each other like a brother and sister.

To even think that this might be her . . .

But wait. What about 'The Program'?' Was I sent to retrieve Priest? Check up on her? Kill here? And what did she mean to do with these Grimm? Did she think to rescue me?

With so many questions running through my head, I almost didn't notice the Nevermore come in.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. This Nevermore was just as hard to miss as the King was small. It floated down for about half the way, but then it noticed me and went into a steep dive right at me. At the last second, I jumped up some 10 feet in the air, making the Nevermore hit full on into the wall behind me. I guess in this dark, my eyes were better than the dumb birds.

As I came down, I took out my axe and cut right into the back of the neck of the feathered beast. What my axe didn't slice in the neck, the blow itself either shattered or mostly cracked the surrounding bone, thereby effectively killing the Grimm.

I quickly dashed into a nearby nest to hide as Priest came back out to see what all the noise was. She didn't see the body at first - the light being what it was - but she made a white ball of light that not only confirmed that she was Priest, but also showed me that she had become very skilled with her semblance. If I wasn't careful, she may kill me before even knowing who I was, much less realize that I was someone she knew from a long time ago.

I took a hardened piece of a broken eggshell and threw it in the nest behind her. It made a satisfying thunk sound that turned her attention away from where I was.

"Who is here?" she said as I snuck up behind her. When I was within arm's reach, I answered.

"Paladin." (*That was the name she would recognize me by)

She turned and tried to punch me out of reflex, but the blow was both slow and expected, making it easy to block. The follow-up move I caught and held her arm as her conscious mind took control of her actions.

"It - how - why -" she said.

"I need to point out a few things before we talk about what's been happening between us," I said. "First, I was dropped off by 'The Program' in this area, so I can only assume that they may know you're here. Second, a small group of protégé Hunters are above to investigate this large nest of Nevermores. Third, and lastly -"

At this point I pulled her in for my first hug.

"I think this is a gesture to show close emotions to others."

"It is," she said, hugging me back, "and it's great to see you, Paladin."

She let the darkness trick dissipate, letting me see what she looked like after 14 years. She is now a few inches shorter than me, with long, red-brown hair, and blue/white eyes. She had on simple white robes that seemed to have been her only pair of clothes for a few years. Her skin is surprisingly unblemished and she has, what I learned later on, an average muscle tone. (*Back then, I thought she was sickly)

"Where have you been?" I asked. "I thought you were dead."

"I nearly was," she said. "A group tried to attack the place where we were kept a dozen years back, and I got caught - rescued - taken with the group. Paladin, you have no idea how they've been mistreating us. We shouldn't even have been made."

"I know."

She froze on the spot, then looked me dead in the eyes

"WH-what?" she asked incredulously.

"They showed me how I was made and how other people are made are two different things," I said.

"And you're okay with it? Not being a proper person?"

"Well, I thought that it was weird for a while, but then I thought that you can't really judge life because nobody knows the purpose of it, so why judge life by how it's born?"

She pause as she thought about what I said, then shook her head to focus back on the matter.

"Fair enough," she said dismissively. "But we shouldn't have been raised as weapons."

"I figured."

"Wha-really?"

"Yeah. They've sent me to steal things from villages, so I saw many examples of how life was like outside 'The Program.' Since I saw families a lot more than you think, it was only fair to assume that I was watching the more common way people lived. Especially when you consider the fact that you and I are the only people I know that live this sort of life. But I have the potential to be more than any person - more than any Hunter - if I stuck to 'The Program's' training for as long as they kept me in their grasp. So while I had always looked for a way out, I put as much enthusiasm as I could in learning what they were willing to teach."

"Okay," she said, completely thrown off by my arguments AND agreements. "I had thought there would be this whole argument I would have to put up to convince you to see the world as it was. I honestly thought that they would make you think the world was nothing but a battleground."

"Well, I never said that they didn't try. But it was so obvious to me how the world works from the start, so instead of believing anything they told me in that regard, I never understood their logic to begin with. Of course, they tried other methods for keeping me 'in line,' but it's kind of hard to make a person the perfect weapon by both making them unable to be controlled by anyone AND make them under your control entirely. But enough about how I agree with you. I'm not out of their control yet, Priest."

"Wait, you're on a mission?"

"Yeah, to hunt you, I think."

"Bof, that means they've already set up."

(*'Bof' is a word made by me and Priest to replace swearing. It confused the hell out of the doctors when we made it. We came up with it when Priest winded me in a mock fight. She said she distinctly heard me say 'bof' as I gasped for air and thought it was hilarious. It then became a kind of running gag after that. Especially since it annoyed the doctors)

Then she smiled, both a warm one to me and an icy one to 'The Program.' (*Or any thoughts about 'The Program' that she was having, it that phrases it better)

"Paladin, would you like to be free today?" She asked.

"Hell yes," I responded. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

"Get those kids you told me about out of her as fast as you can. After that, get on a Nevermore and jab right under the skull and right above the spine. They're trained to know that you're their master now if you do that. I'll then need you to find whatever defenses 'The Program' have up around the area. We're going to have to break out of here."

"We may be able to use the Hunters to help us get out. They said that they were flown in outside of your Nevermores' reach, but they still got in. That means that 'The Program' either doesn't consider them a threat, or they managed to sneak right past their defenses without trying."

"Good thinking. I need to go contact some people I know that may be able to help us. Get going. The Nevermores will all be here soon."

I turned around and immediately started scaling back up the wall, using my Semblance to make picks on chains. (*I would throw a pick hard into a wall, then climb the chain until I reached the end. I would throw the next one, pull the first one out of the wall, and then repeat. A bit hard where the wall slanted, but still made climbing a breeze)

Now, you may have expected me to have gotten into a fight with my childhood friend, that I would have to realize 'The Program' was evil on my own - something romantic like that. Well, not only were you wrong because of the previously mentioned reasons, but you also forget that I was made with Gold Lightning Dust. You may not know that your brain works on electricity, (*Rather, chemical reactions that RELEASE electricity from one nerve to the next) but it does. So, when you add brain signals with Magic Lightning, it results in being near impossible to be brainwashed. Also, I got some other biological perks that revolve around nerves I think I may have mentioned.

Anyway, I got to the top of the pit and thought about what to tell the group to get them to do what I needed them to do. _If I come clean, that will only serve to show that I can't be trusted_ , I thought. _But I can't make up a lie to them about what to look for. That would be too dangerous or too risky._

While I thought hard about what to do, I forgot to keep on my toes for any attacks. This meant that I just barely noticed the sound of a weapon warming up before it fired on me. I went diving behind a boulder as the fuselage rained down. The rapid fire made it almost impossible to tell that it wasn't an energy weapon, but some ridiculous rate of fire weapon. Some of the bullets shots over my cover, which let me see that the ammo was Orange Lava Dust bullets.

The Dust was outlawed when in use as a weapon, as everything it touched would turn to ash before it even caught on fire. One forest could become devastated from a single, misplaced Lava Dust Cartridge. It was only ever used as forging fuel, seeing as the heat was so intense that a small teaspoon in five gallons of water made the hottest useable substance ever. (*Case in point, I once have a single drop of said liquid dropped on the back of my hand. It burned through without even losing momentum. Luckily after that, whenever I'm in extreme pain, I just remember the moment that happened, and the pain doesn't feel that bad anymore by comparison)

No one even made the cartridges anymore, except in one place.

'The Program' was making their move.

Patting myself down, I felt the bug that they had put on my armor. They had heard everything I had said to Priest. So they went on the offensive to try to get the upper hand. I threw the bug up in the air, where it was immediately shot down from the incredible gunfire.

Soon, the gun stopped firing and I peeked out to see what was attacking me. The attacker was the new Atlesian Paladin mech that I had seen being tested in a previous raid I was dropped into. It was part of the new 300 series, so the scientist of course wanted to make it look flashy and seemingly impractical without it looking defective. This meant the giant robot was a lot of curves, sleek metal, and transforming parts. This one also had a head. I mention this as most of these giant robots are usually manned suits, not their own droids.

But what really showed that the scientists were showing off with this machine was the fact that it had no joints. Instead, there was empty space where the joints normally would be. To explain in the simplest terms possible, the joints were electromagnetic fields whish allowed the robot to look like a floating assortment of pieces that moved like a proper body. Imagine, if you would, a robot five times the size of you, seemingly made of wood elves practicing metal forging, and looked as if it was held together because the wind kept wafting the pieces where they needed to go.

With it standing on a ledge a few floors above, the sun behind it and making its surface either gleam or hide in shadow, it almost looked intimidating.

As it reloaded, I ran from my cover and jumped into the pit. Using a spear and chain (*Yes, like my pick and chain from me previously climbing the walls), I threw it into the wall closest to the automaton-o-fun and swung towards the dirt. After bracing my landing by tucking my legs up so that my feet hit the wall first, I used my Semblance even further by making force light (*I'm able to slow and condense light to act like a current of air. Think of a Jedi using the Force to push an enemy down, but make the Force shiny) push my body up as I ran up the wall. I then came soaring out of the pit right towards the gleaming golem's head.

The magnetic mech tried to swing an arm to block my attack, but I was too fast at that point. Bracing myself for the impact, I bulldozed right into the floating observance unit (*The head), cracking the thing's lenses with the crash. I easily flipped over the head as it swung in tight circles above its floating torso (*There being no neck to help absorb the impact) and landed facing away from the thing a few feet away. Bringing my axe in a wide, horizontal arc, I pivoted and sliced halfway through the left 'leg.' Quickly reversing my momentum, I pulled my axe out, spun a full 360°, and sliced at the exact same spot from the other side.

Needless to say, the leg was now completely cut in half, which caused the A.P. to fall somewhat down. It didn't hit the ground, as it caught itself halfway, but a lot of its pieces were now floating at odd angles. (*Now, before you read the next paragraph, please know that I didn't have a sense of humor when writing this portion of my story. So when this event specifically took place, I saw it as no more than an opportunity to deal massive damage to the A.P. and end the fight. Please keep that in mind, as I want you to understand how I changed from not seeing such funny concepts to never NOT seeing them)

The torso part was bent away from me, so I took the chance, made a foot-long spike of gold come out of the palm of my hand, and drove it upwards. (*I told you it was funny. I violently goosed a robot. I don't care if it's lowbrow humor, that crap's funny)

So as the thing tried to righted itself, I took the opportunity to climb onto its back. As it made jerking movements to try and dislodge me, I vented my anger of my life-long confinement onto the behemoth and repeatedly hacked at its torso randomly with my axe, chipping away at it a sliver at a time. I was battered on all sides as I hacked and slashed and destroyed the thing. But I fell into a rhythm that helped me focus of nothing but destroying the surface of the automaton. If I damaged the entire surface of the torso, I would disrupt the stability of the entire magnetic field holding it together. Besides, it couldn't risk doing anything to actually kill. Not with the constant damage I was inflicting.

Soon, I found that I had been smashing away at the metal mesh of what was left of the robot on the ground, the focused fury of my attack blocking out the outside world for I don't precisely know how long. No more than a minute at most. I looked around, breathing a little heavy. That last fight went longer than a usual one because I needed the emotional release, but now I may be too frazzled to properly plan out what to do.

I took a deep breath, calming down before I made a mistake.

I suddenly heard a terrible screech come from behind me. I raise my shield, doing all that I can to make a wall of red block the expected damaged. (*Red is easiest for me to control. The level of difficulty of light is from red to violet, rainbow-style. While the higher colors are harder for me to control, they tend to make whatever I'm doing light-wise stronger)

Except the threat was already taken care of.

Another A.P. had managed to come through where I had originally came in. I imagine it had tried to get a look on me as I destroyed its brother. But instead of personally showing me what was inside its gun, it instead had to show me what was in its own torso.

It had to because someone had ripped the A.P.s cover of with their bare hands.

Standing to the side of it, holding the missing segment of protective covering, was a man. He is only a few inches shorter than me, but has a loooooooot more muscle mass. (*Notice that if I still am in contact with people, I use present tense words to describe them. Some publisher tried to say that was wrong, but I showed him how past tense words are used on average, explained my reasoning behind why I thought using them in situations like this, and all around spouted a lot of hot air about the subject until he got feed up and kept it as it was. If you don't like it as well, too bad. I'm sticking to it)

He had on chainmail armor - like old knights would wear, but much sleeker - of beaten steel and iron. He had the visor of his helmet down, obscuring his face. As I watched, he took the serrated edge of the metal and swung it hard across the robots face, slicing it with its own serrated metal.

The automaton fell into a heap after a few more such attacks at a blazing speed.

The gladiator turned to me, I still in a pose to protect myself should he had decided to attack me next.

"Relax," he said, his voice rather young. "I'm a friend of Priest. I was once called 'Warrior' when in 'The Program',' but I prefer to be called Zack."

"You another escapee like her?" I asked, easing up visibly but still on guard.

"Not exactly. Me and Clarissa, another Duster - that's what I call people born as we were - by the codename 'Mage' escaped by breaking out ourselves. We later integrated ourselves with a small town. After a vicious killing seemingly made by a violent nomad group, we attacked what we soon learned was another base like the one me and Mage grew up in. We then found Priest, and decided to take her with us. She then grew up like we did, but had always wanted to go back for another Duster named Paladin."

"That'd be me," I said.

"I figured as much. She sent me a message to come back to help her with an oncoming attack. Thank the Dust I was not too far gone after visiting her."

"Enough. There's undoubtedly more of these Atlesian Paladins coming to kill us, or worse. There's a group of four Huntsmen trainees that will be caught in the crossfire if we don't do something soon."

"If they're anything like an average Hunter, they'll be fine."

"I killed my first Hunter at the age of six. I am now eighteen. They now know that I and Priest are here. They will send much more that any four Hunters can handle. We need to save them."

"Alright. Let's get going."


	4. Chapter 4

**Ch. 4**

I once again swung for where I last saw the campfire I left Cassy. Even if they weren't there, I could track them wherever they went.

Zack was behind me, following me on foot pretty well considering I was swinging from tree to tree at nearly 30 miles an hour.

"What do you go by?" he asked me as we speed through the forest.

"What?" I asked.

"What name have you given yourself?"

"None yet. I'm still supposed to be working for 'The Program' right now and have only just started fighting against them today. So I never made an actual name for myself."

"What do you mean by 'actual'?"

"Well, I gave one girl I meet up with in the group we're looking for the name 'Kuraz' when she asked me for mine."

He started laughing at that.

"That name is ridiculous."

"I was on the spot and it was the first time I had thought about naming myself. I'm lucky I wasn't original and decided on something like John."

"Wait, you were more worried about being original than sounding authentic when lying to this girl?"

"Well, I wasn't afraid of getting caught doing so. If she knew I was lying and demanded an answer, I wouldn't have given it to her. And it's not like she could have made me answer honestly, anyway. But since the last person I told about 'The Program' was instantly killed after I finished talking, I decided to lie to keep her safe. Anyway, what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Do you really only call yourself 'Zack?'"

"It's short for a name of a prophet called Zachariah."

"Then why not introduce yourself as Zachariah?"

"It's wordy in normal conversation."

"Touché. Hey, you mind me asking what Dust you were made with?"

"Red Flame Dust. You?"

"Gold Lightning."

"Ah, a strong element. I hope I get to see you do amazing things in the upcoming fight."

"How about you hope for us to live through the next ten minutes? The things following us aren't going to be easy to kill."

We had noticed that the three of them had been following us for about a mile now, just out of sight but not out of detection. They looked a little like battle mannequins, but that meant that they were a lot faster that the A.P.s we had fought. They had also been programmed to work in unison with each other via Wi-Fi connections to each other, making a kind of hive mind. This _did_ mean that when one was destroyed, the rest of the others processing speed was affected. However, it was made us by the fact that when fighting one of three, it was as smart as three. So destroying one was almost impossible, but if you could, the rest fell easily afterwards.

"Please, if they're anything like the hunks of junk we destroyed already, this'll be a breeze."

At that point, another Scout came in front of us with a grenade launcher/ hammer. It slammed the heavy head right into Zack's face. The sight of him skipping across the ground like a pebble across water would have been funny if we weren't under attack at the time.

I swung myself right towards the trunk of a tree, braced my feet against it as I touched, and pushed off as hard as I could in the exact opposite direction I was once going. This allowed me to tackle one of the Scouts that was behinds us right into the ground.

Unfortunately, it pulled out a small but solid dagger that it lodged right into my diaphragm. I was able to cut off its head as we tumbled on the ground, but know it hurt to breathe. I wasn't going to be able to use my Semblance in this fight.

Zack wasn't as fazed as me. He got up on his feet before he even stopped moving and ran straight for the Scout that knocked him in the face. It fired a few bombs in his direction, but he just batted them aside with the back of his hand before they detonated. Before he reached the grenade Scout, though, it jumped high to show another Scout with a long sword charging for him. It swung in an arc that would have taken a normal head clean off.

But we weren't normal.

He ducked under the blow and punched it solidly in the chest. It went flying back, and that was when I was left to focus on my own problems. The other two droids that I had noticed following us suddenly burst with speed and rushed me. I blocked a swing of a sword with my axe and a barrage of bullets with my shield, but the third got me in the gut with a lance, right between two plates of armor. I instantly felt numb where the wound was, followed by a feeling of great fatigue.

 _The blade was poisoned, but no normal poison should have been able to affect me as greatly as this one did. 'The Program' had trained my body for such tactics. This must be something that was made specifically for people like me._

I thought of all of this in half a second, as the next few ones were going to be critical.

Taking a moment to steady myself, I pushed my axe straight upwards while jumping backwards. This left the droid with the sword off balance and right in the line of fire of the second droid that was still firing a clip from what looked like a rifle. The one with the lance kept driving its weapon into me, dodging the weapon fire and spreading the numbing agent throughout my torso.

It was getting hard to breath. I was having trouble standing up straight. I felt that I was being trapped in my own body.

That made me angry.

I brought my shield down hard across the shaft of the lance, breaking it clean off with the top part spinning out of my flesh. (*The one good thing about the numbing agent was that I didn't have to feel the thing rip through me as it came out) I then bashed the droid with a reverse swing of my shield, causing it to stumble back. I took the moment to bring my axe up for a killing blow to the head.

But the second droid with the gun shot my weapon at the height of the chop, making me hard pressed to catch my balance. The lancer got its footing because of this and proceeded to use the busted lance as a Bo staff. It went to sweep my left leg, but I jumped to avoid it. It then tried to hit me in the wound it made, but my shield blocked it. It went on like this because whenever there was an opening I could use, the second mech with shoot cover fire. If I tried to make a move, I may end up with a bullet in my head.

But you gotta have guts in a fight if you want to live through it.

After blocking a blow to the head, I dropped my axe and caught the next blow that can from the right. Two bones broke in my hand, but I didn't let go. Using my shield to block the gunfire from the second, I pulled the lance backwards hard. The droid had locked all its joints to try to keep its balance, but I just grabbed higher on the lance, pulled back again, and socked it right where its chin would have been if it had a proper head. (*With the broken hand, too. Hurt like hell, but I lived there for the first 18 years of my life, so not that bad in context) I heard lots of gears crush under my fist, and the droids now lifeless body toppled over like a museum statue.

I picked up my axe as I was shot by the second automaton and was about to chuck the thing at its head, when I heard what could only be described as a roar from Zack. I turned to see a speeding rock hurl right pass my helmet, too close and too fast for me to properly react to it. Thankfully, it only hit the Scout in the chest, leaving a perfect hole where it went through. Needless to say, it crumpled like tinfoil.

Still looking in the original direction I turned to, I saw the most incredible sight. It was the first time I laughed hard.

Zack was, after throwing the rock, beating up a large number of droids with - and I kid you not - other droids. He had two of them by both sets of ankles, one in each hand, and was just going nuts. He was tossing them around like rag dolls. Just swinging them like so much rope. Oh, Glow, it was funny. Especially when you lived fighting them in death matches. (*It looked like a toddler with an oversized beanie baby) With every swing, he took out 2 to 4 Scouts.

But he still needed to be covered.

Still giggling a little, I focused and made a stack of red light spears appear beside me. Taking one, I got in a good stance and threw. I nabbed one trying for Zack's back in its own back. I took another and did pretty much the same for about a few minutes. After that, there was a ring of metal bodies around him.

I walked over, healing my stomach and hand.

"Well," Zack said, panting lightly, "That was a learning experience."

"Don't tell me you're tired already?" I said. "They'll undoubtedly have a lot more than this paltry force."

"Really?" At this, I could tell that he was smiling under the visor. "So there's going to be an actual challenge later?"

"You could say that. Now come on, we still need to find the others."

(*This is a literary device to show something I will actually find out happened later, but occurred during the time of my escape)

"Sir," came from a radio in front of two people, watching the events unfold from atop a Stealth Carrier not yet released to the Atlas Army, "the target is about to meet with the others. Orders?"

"Incapacitate the trainees," said the first figure, a lanky man that had a whispering voice would remind people of a skeleton when seen or heard, "but after the target believes he has escaped."

"Sir, may I ask why?"

"I desire to see him grow more as an individual. He kept his emotions from us so well that we never suspected him to have ever wanted to escape, let alone felt so for years. Hence the need for him to think he has done so. He'll let his emotions show more, which will give us insight as to how he works."

"Thank you, sir. Proceeding with execution."

The radio clicked to show that the unknown talker was off the air.

"A rather cruel thing to do," said the second figure with a rich voice and stocky frame.

"I must observe all of his emotions," said the first. "That would include grief."

"But must you harm the young to do this?"

"I need the strongest reactions possible to understand their minds. You know this."

"I do. But this smacks of evil."

"Why do you think **I** ordered it and not you?"

"You're despicable."

"And you need me that way so that they may be strong. Now please excuse me as I watch them."

We got hammered.

I don't mean on booze, I mean we were put through probably the greatest fight of our lives. I never had to fight so hard, so long, or so adaptably. How I did not faint at any point afterwards is still something I can't explain. I don't know if the Dust in my blood helped me stay awake, I don't know if it was because of my training, I literally do not know how I stayed awake after the fight.

You see, while I and Zack ran through the forest, we came atop of a hill that overlooked most of the area around the Temple.

This let us see the army - ARMY - that was coming our way.

There were squads of twenty Scouts coming our way, each lead by an A.P. Groups of ten A.P.s were then lead by a van that held a mobile medical lab that housed a general, five troops, and three doctors. The doctors were there for when they planned to capture and dissect us. I still have the faded scars of where the doctors would repeatedly cut me so as to look inside of me. Even with my powers, the repeated slicing of my flesh made a permanent mark on my body.

There were eight vans. That math meant that there were eight generals, twenty-four doctors, forty soldiers, eighty A.P.s, and one-hundred-sixty Scouts. That made two-hundred-twelve against eight. (*The four Hunters, Me, Zack, Priest, and another that's about to be introduced)

"We are not going to win this," Zack said.

"Priest says that some Nevermores she controls are supposed to come soon," I said unenthusiastically. "The only question is how they'll arrive."

"Dribble in, they're a nuisance we can use as a distraction as we cut of their heads. All at once, we can fight them head on."

"I'd rather run as soon as we can."

"What, scared of a battlefield?"

"I'm scared of dying the first few minutes I'm free of them, not to mention what would happen if any of us got captured again?"

Zack nodded. "Fair enough. What do you want to do?"

"Find the others, get back in the pit, and use whatever you did to come here to get away."

"That last one will be tricky. My partner, Clarissa, is a Duster like us. She can use 'latent energy,' or something like that, to do crazy things. Hence the tittle 'Mage' when we were in 'The Program.' She made a tunnel for me to run all the way here, but she said it used all the energy she could reach to make it and it collapsed behind me once I was out. I don't suppose you're much of a digger, are you?"

"Priest has half of a monster-large Taijitu that's still kicking. Maybe it can burrow?"

We would have kept planning if we didn't suddenly hear the cry of a few Nevermores. Looking back at the approaching army, we saw three of them coming from behind the force. They swooped down to attack, but were immediately shot down by all of the droids before they gained much speed. But the flaming bodies still caused some damage as they fell on the force.

"We might not need to fight," Zack said, a small tone of disappointment crossing his face.

"Come on," I said. "We still have to find the others."

"I hope you mean us, because I'll be seriously angry if you forgot about us!"

I turned around to see the speaker (*Cassy) and her group coming from the trees.

"Hey," I called, running over to them. "You all okay?"

"Yeah," said Cassy. "We just fought a giant robot thing, but we're good."

"Speak for yourself," said the orange-shirt guy. (*Joseph) He was out of breath and using his mini-lance-gun as a walking staff. "That thing took forever to stop moving."

"You may want to see this," I said, gesturing back to the hill.

They came up to the top of the hill and say the approaching army.

"What the hell is all of THAT for?" whined Joseph.

"A good-sized party for us to enjoy," Zack said.

"Who's your friend?" Cassy asked.

"Zack, a friend I meet while scouting the area," I answered.

"He's cute," said Haily.

I notice Cassy look at her in shock before Zack said, "I'm out of your league."

Coming from the other side of the hill (*But not in the direction of the army) came Priest and another woman. She looked like what you would think Priests sister would be like. She is a few inches shorter than Priest, has short, blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. Also, where Priest wore simple clothes, the other were extravagant. The general colors were deep blues and dark purples, but the thing that really drew the eyes were the inlaid patterns. They were the same color as the background they stood against, so they disappeared if not in direct light, but they somehow manage to change. When I first looked, I saw a detailed pattern of a dragon on her shoulder. The next time I looked, it was a noble warrior.

I looked at Priest questioningly and nodded my head to the new arrival.

"Clarissa, Zack's partner," she whispers.

"So what exactly are we going to do about the army that's approaching us?" asked Chaz.

"Run," I said.

"No," Priest replied. "We won't be able to outrun them, and they'll search everywhere for us, so we can't hide. We can only fight."

"What!?" Joseph exclaimed. "You want us to fight this?!"

"I thought Hunters were supposed to be made of tougher stuff," Zack said.

"They're trainees," I said. "And at any rate, Priest is right. We wouldn't be able to run or hide from them. So how do you guys want to do this?"

"I CALL THE COWARDS IN THE CARS!" Zack yelled way too loudly.

"I think we could handle one squad each," said Clarissa, "but Zack will be the only one to do any real damage to the cars without killing the occupants."

"Wait, why do we care about killing these people?" I asked.

"Any of the doctors were strong-armed into doing what they did by 'The Program', Kuraz," Zack said. (*Also, he actually said the words 'the' and 'program,' not the actual name of the group. I mark the phrase 'The Program' with apostrophes) "They are as much trapped as we were."

"Anyone want to tell me what you guys are muttering about?" asked Chaz.

"No," said Clarissa, "But here's the breakdown: We were part of a super-soldier program and are trying to escape, and all of that-" here she pointed at the mass of metal marching towards us "-is here to try and stop us doing so. They're completely ruthless and are not against killing bystanders to make sure we don't become discovered."

"I'm sorry," said Joseph, "I think I missed something. Aren't there usually opening credits before a cheap movie plot like this is introduced?"

Before we started arguing, I took of my left glove, made a small blade of orange, and cut across the palm to show them my golden blood.

"Lightning Dust is not fuse to me," I said in the hush that followed, "but part of what make up my cells."

I turned to Cassy, staring at my palm like the rest.

"That's why I glowed during the blessing thing you did."

There was a moment of silence, tense by the fact that the attack force kept getting closer.

"Well," said Chaz, breaking the air, "what do we do now?"

"Form up back at the Temple for now," Priest said. "We can plan and defend from there."

"I want to take out the vans as soon as possible," Zack said.

"I agree," I said. "They're the only way that they can transport us for any length of time, so if we get rid of those, that makes them fighting us pointless."

"Let's move as we talk," Clarissa said.

We started jogging to the Temple, making sure we didn't leave the Hunters behind. We discussed where weapons would be most useful, areas that may need to be demolished before the fight, and other strategies. The Hunters were really helpful, thinking up of ways to use our powers in tandem to maximize their effects. None of it could really have been done without Clarissa, though. Her Semblance of Wizardry allowed her to do almost anything. There were limits she had to abide by, such as only being able to use the energy around her in a 500 meter radius around to do things within a 50 meter radius around her, but there wasn't anything she couldn't do. The only problem she has is how much energy she needs to do whatever and paired with how much energy there is in an area.

"Perfect," I said when I heard the gist of this from Zack. "Does that mean she can do stuff with the weather?"

"Sure," Clarissa said, "but the more destructive it is, the more energy it uses. What do you have in mind?"

"Well," I said, "I _was_ thinking of a lightning storm, but that'd tax you. How about a thick fog?

"That's easy."

"Good. How fast can you make it happen?"

"About ten minutes, I can make about a hundred acres pure gray."

"I want ten feet of visibility, not ten centimeters. And can you make the fog mess with electronic senses, by any chance?"

"I can make it have its own energy signature, but only while I'm directly focusing on making it. If I have to defend myself, the energy will dissipate and they'll be able to scan."

"Then I want you and one of the hunters to stay with you inside of the temple."

"I'll do it," Joseph said.

"Alright. Haily, Cassy, Chaz, I want you to scout ahead. See if there's any terrain or fault in their strategy you can exploit."

"And you think they won't attack because why?" asked Chaz.

"You got passed them without even trying."

"What?"

"Sorry, I forget you're new to this. 'The Program' does a test where they drop you off in a wide area and expect you to figure out what they want you to do."

"Okay, number one, why the hell would they let you, people that they'd send an army to subdue, out alone to do anything without control: and number two, why didn't you escape the other times you were tested like that?"

"They do it to test the adaptability of 'the products' and their loyalty to 'The Program.' As to the second question, they encircle the area and kill anyone . . . how he said it . . . 'inconsequential and a danger to the asset.'"

There was a pause.

"I'm glad I didn't stay as long as I did," Priest said. "That was incredibly callous."

"I know," I said. "I was quoting what I heard from the first time I tried to escape. Now get going (*This was at the Hunters now) before you miss an opportunity. We'll attack when we either hear you fighting or when they're 100 yards from the temple."

Then a thought occurs as they leave the temple.

"Hey, Priest, what name did you choose?"

"What?"

"Well, Warrior chose Zachariah as his name when he escaped, Mage chose Clarissa, but I don't know the one you chose for yourself."

"I never chose a name for myself."

"Why?"

"Well, I thought that when I saved you, we could decide our names together."

"A little late there," Zack said. "He already decided on one."

"What?!"

"Yeah, and it's a goofy one to. Kuraz."

"Hey," I said, "I said that because I was on the spot and thought that I had to lie to protect Cassy. Remember what I just said about the other times I tried to escape?"

"But I had so many ideas for us," Priest whined. "I mean, I thought we should have 'craft' somehow in our last names since we craft light and it would be super cute, so I looked up different languages that had said 'craft' differently."

"Okay, okay. I just thought of a first name not ten minutes ago. I wasn't even planning on keeping it. There's no need for the drama, okay?"

"Drama?!" I don't know why, but Priest was getting really angry about this. Spots around her were becoming darker than usual, it was that bad. I stepped back, thinking she might start a fight. (*I now know she was only throwing a fit, but I have never been in an argument at this point. It was a whole new social experience I was in no way prepared for)

"OOO-kay," Clarissa said, stepping between us to diffuse the tension. (*Thank the Glow for that) "This is getting way out of hand. Can we talk about it AFTER we defeat the army marching on our dilapidated temple?"

"Yeah," Zack said. "You can finish your lover's quarrel once we're safe."

"Lover's quarrel?" I asked. (*Remember, still don't know what 'love' means at this point)

"Enough!" Clarissa said. "Joseph, I'll need to cast at a height so I can better see what I'm doing. Please follow me up to the roof. Zack, Kuraz, Priest, please space yourself evenly around the temple. They may try to flank us, so I want our sides covered until we know where the main attack is."

"Right. I'll stand by that half blocked entrance over there."

"I'll take the opposite one," Zack said.

"I'll stand guard at the pit," Priest said, "in case we need to make a retreat, I can protect the area with hard light walls."

"Zack," I said, "You ARE able to read a situation well enough to know when you can't currently win, right?"

"I never needed to," Zack said, "But I understand what you mean. If we become overwhelmed, I'll fall back with the rest of you."

"Alright. Get in position. You know the signals. Good hunting, everyone."

Once everyone had gotten into their position, I had time to think about everything that had happened so far.

I was about to be free or dead. 'The Program' won't allow me to live after this. At this stage of my development, if they haven't assured compliance and loyalty, they'd sooner kill me that put any effort into putting me under their control. They have now made it a fight for survival.

But that puts me at the advantage.

They had only ever fought to keep themselves secret or to retrieve me. I, however, have consistently fought to survive every single day of my life. True, in many of the tests they'd put me through, they may have saved me for further tests. But only whenever I'd show a new tactic in the original fight that they had put me in.

I had more experience surviving than they had.

Not to mention the Hunters. They may know what to expect from us Dusters, but the others will be our wild card. Or, at minimum, we have to make them think that they are. And their weaponry is something else. I've studied and even trained with a few melee guns, but I was never allowed to own any long-ranged weaponry because I'm 'already O.P,' whatever that means.

I looked through the opening in the direction of the oncoming battle. An odd nevermore would fly in and by immediately shot down from a dozen weapons, but the thuds could be felt from hundreds of yards away. I could only hope that they were at least doing some damage in death.

I started running battle simulations in my head. I needed to be prepared for every eventuality that may arise in the upcoming fight, or I may die. The rising fog Clarissa was making was appearing as I did this. It was slowly growing, but it was wide-spread. Far wider than I thought would be possible. I would have to kill Clarissa first if she turned on me.

As I watched the fourth bird fall in flames from the sky, I noticed two separate explosions happen at once.

The fight for freedom had begun.


	5. Chapter 5

**Ch. 5**

"Zack," I yelled, "Stay 30 yards behind me as we run. I don't want us both caught in a trap like last time."

"Fat chance," he said. "I'd have been fine without you. You stay 30 yards back."

"Fine. Priest, stay here. I'll send a blue flare up if we need back-up."

"Got it. Be careful."

And we were off.

I stayed back as Zack 'nicely' asked me to. I would have argued on most other occasions, but we weren't fighting an opponent that would allow that kind of behavior. We had no time to argue.

So we ran through the forest at double speed, with me pushing off of tree trunks with one foot at a time like an armored ninja. Zack still ran on the ground.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"Do what?" I replied.

"Travel just under the branches."

"Safest spot in a forest. Ground attacks are at a disadvantage, I can jump into the branches if needed, and if someone is already in the branches, they lose the high ground advantage."

"And I'll bet it is fun."

"I don't know. I don't have a good concept of fun anymore."

"What?"

"Well, the last time I remember having anything like fun was when Priest was still in the program. That was over 14 years ago. So I don't think I know what fun is anymore. Now focus. The second we see the enemy, they will try to kill us or worse. Use everything you have."

As I said that, we suddenly appeared into a clearing.

Filled with the enemy.

I had no time to survey my surroundings as I found myself charging into an A.P. Twisting in the air, I slammed feet-first into its chest, which pushed the whole segment out of alignment with the others. While this _did_ leave the giant lumbering away awkwardly, it also made me get whacked by one of its shin segments further into the battlefield. (*Also, I lost track of Zack at this point, but he told me all about his experience after we were free to actually talk)

I crashed into a trunk of a fallen tree, looking up at the face of an Advance Close Combat Scout. These models are fully equipped with their single FTW - Fully Transforming Weapon - Which is capable of turning into anything the Scout deems necessary to complete whatever mission it's been sent on. And it's able to transform into so many things because its body IS most of the weapons.

It swung a hammer for my head, but I rolled out of the way and onto the ground. Changing from hammer to halberd, it then thrashed and slashed at me from on top of the tree trunk. I saw a few more Scouts coming from behind me, leaving me nowhere to retreat to.

Thinking fast, I charged my axe with light and slashed hard upwards to seemingly throw the droid off balance. It moved the weapon to the side, but I reversed my swing quickly and seemingly tried to go for it again. It missed, but my intended target was never the weapon.

It was the tree trunk it was standing on.

Using force light, I had a wave of gold push the newly cut out piece of the old oak that the droid was standing on. As it fell down, I diverted the head of the halberd with my shield and slammed the head of my axe into its chest. At the same time, I placed the helm of my helmet directly where the robot's head was going, obliterating its face.

Shrugging off the limp body, I turned to the approaching Scouts. Swinging my axe in a wide arc, I released the light I had stored in it. This resulted in a white, slashing force cutting through all three of the automatons.

But I was immediately attacked from behind with an explosion of cold that threw me from my feet. Once again spinning in mid-air, I managed to land on the base of an old tree stump, looking in the direction of the newest attacker.

"You troublesome brat," said my opponent.

"Good evening, Miss Shcnee," I said. "Or should I call you Winter?"

She was standing on top of what counted as a shoulder of an A.P. with heavy armor. This woman was the hidden hand of 'The Project.' The one who came up with the combat scenarios for me to complete, the one who watched as I endured torture for the sake of increasing my endurance, the one near the head of everything.

She wore her white hair in the usual bun and had her 'high-class' uniform on, with her cutlass and dagger on her hip. Her light-blue eyes looked at me with disdain.

"Don't you think you can speak to me in that tone, boy."

"Very well. How about 'Icy Bitch?'"

"You would dare to be so vulgar with me?"

"I would _dare_ to show you the disrespect you deserve. Do you really expect me to treat someone at the head of a group that had me brutally beaten regularly, subjects me to fight-for-my-life situations, and treats me like a tool with _anything_ approaching courteously?"

I started walking towards her. She sent another ice missile at me, but I batted it aside, my anger building and giving me power. It hit the A.P. she stood on, forcing her to jump down into the filth and on my level.

"Do you have any idea what it was like to be me? Knowing I shouldn't be living such a life when a bunch of others get to live free. I was always fighting, always surviving, never sure if I would live for a few more days or not. CAN YOU COMPREHEND SUCH A CONCEPT, YOU ICY BITCH!?"

A barrage of fireballs was the next response, but I detonated them by sending a wave of dark red across the area. She looked more frustrated than usual.

"Well, I will admit, your training has made me powerful. But I don't think you know just how so. See, I've been hiding my strength for the past seven years."

A large stone now, but I bashed it aside with a lump of orange like a slow gnat. She looked even more frustrated, actually showing teeth. (*That's a big deal. She never changed her expression except between annoyed and infuriated. This was a new step I hadn't seen before)

"It was infuriating. I felt like I was living in a world of cardboard and was being force to treat it like steel. Always taking care to use a minimum of force. Never allowing myself to cut loose and break something big, something important, someone 'necessary' in your eyes."

She pulled out her parrying dagger from her cutlass and tried to charge me physically. I didn't even attempt to block and allowed her to stab me through the gut with her cutlass and into the chest with her dagger, parting the armor I wore. She humped in dissatisfaction before I delivered the killing line.

"But now I have an opportunity to show you just how powerful I _really_ am."

Finally, a look of concern from her. I now had her scared of me.

Just like I wanted. (*Any fight with a Hunter is hard to win with just good fighting ability. To win a fight against a Hunter, you must make it a battle of the mind as well as a battle of the body. Hunters, by definition, generally hunt Grimm, which respond to negative emotions like fear, misery, and hate. This involves incredible focus to the target, surroundings, and their own abilities not just physically, but emotionally. However, they aren't use to battling emotional battles like I have. Every time I had taken a life, I had always questioned myself deeply about if it was the right move. I was telling the truth about my strength, let me be clear on that right now. But that made it more difficult. In needing to hide my power, I had to hold back my abilities. Meaning I had a limit of how fast I could move, how I can use my Semblance, and other such things. There were many times I could have knocked a person out if I had passed that limit, but because I could never risk it, I had to aim to kill when I couldn't knock them out at the level I was putting out. Those fights especially tormented me)

I put my shield and axe on their sheaths and grabbed her hands, which still held her weapons, in the blink of a human eye. As I spread my arms wide, it dislodged the instruments in my body. It also picked Winter up off the ground and brought her face close to mine.

"Don't die too fast," I growled, slowly healing the wounds I had exacerbated in myself. "I have sooooo many things I want to try, and you need to be strong enough to take it."

She kneed me in the groin, but I waited a full five seconds before dropping her to the ground. This seemingly showed that I took no damage. (*Case in point, I didn't really, as that's the one place that's more armored than anything. But the lack of a reaction after a usually painful attack installs fear into anyone. The amount and kind may differ, but can you seriously not be scared if you kneed someone in the groin and all they did was looked you in the eyes for five full seconds afterwards?) As she fell, I kneed her so hard in the chest, she fell on another tree trunk ten yards away.

"First item on the agenda!" I shouted, adding a little maniac edge to my voice in an attempt to plant more fear. "How fast can I really move?"

"Don't think you can fool me, child!" she yelled. "I already know your strengths and weaknesses. You can't scare me with cheap words!"

A direct challenge! I need to beat it to really start messing with her.

Combining my Aura with the Dust in my blood, everything around me appeared to slow down. Of course, I knew it was me that was speeding up. I ran the distance between us, making sure that I stopped right behind her. Before returning to normal speed, I made sure to lean close to her ear.

"REALLY?" I yelled, instantly going back to super-speed mode as she swung her cutlass at me. I ran to the front of her, then came back to normal speed.

"So you must know my top speed, right?" I ask as she still swung for where I was.

She swung again, and I super-speed dodged it again. I did this for around a minute, giving myself obviously less room to dodge each time I did so. She kept trying to swing faster and faster, growing more frustrated by the minute. I had to use all my willpower trying not to show how completely livid I was. Then I remembered I was wearing a helmet, so I went ahead and did so.

This woman was the lap dog of the very people that thought to raise me in hell while in view of heaven. There is no other way to put it. I saw how families live while in 'The Program.' I saw festivals and holidays. I saw sad days and sick days. I saw love being fostered, marriage processions act out, funeral held for the departed. I saw every major aspect of life that I was denied by them. Because I was their property, their tool. Because they thought to own me. I'm not sure any word in any language could properly sum up the feeling of rage, hate, pain, and misery I was feeling at that moment. Rage for the woman in front of me, hate for 'The Program,' pain at the loss of a normal life.

Misery for all the families, festivals, holidays, sad days, sick days, love fostering, and marriage making days I had ruined. Of all the funerals I had made. Of all the sin I had caused because I could never be strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to escape their control. I can blame 'The Program' for forcing me to do everything I did, but it doesn't change the fact that _I_ did them.

But no more.

I crashed my fist into the side of her skull, hearing the jaw snap from it's joint in dislocation.

No more 'Program.'

I followed with a flurry of punches into her midriff. No real aim in mind, just a releasing of rage.

No more being controlled.

I followed with a heel kick to the sternum as she fell, sending her twenty yards away.

No more needlessly taking lives.

Tendrils of electricity were sparking between my fingers as I walked to where she lay, coughing red and continuously failing to rise.

No more.

Flashes of light played around me, my Semblance losing control in my fury.

NO MORE.

I grabbed her by her hair bun and lifted her off her feet. She flailed, not using her Semblance for some reason.

NO MORE!

I grabbed for my axe, my anger tensing my muscles and causing me to do so slowly. She began to go nuts, but still didn't use her Semblance.

NO MORE!

I lifted my axe, preparing to end her life in one, final, strike.

"NO MORE! I SUBMIT! NO MORE! PLEEEAAASSSEEE DON'T!"

It was Schnee.

I saw her mouth move, but I hadn't realized that she had been saying anything until now. When did she start? Now? As I had picked her up? When I was walking towards her? Even before?

Does it matter?

I have this chance. This rare chance I may never get again. To end it. To end her. The lapdog of pain. I can finally kill her like I had wanted to for so long. So long under the whip. So long on a leash. So long in chains.

Should I take it?

What would this say about me? Wanting to stop killing, but still having to kill to get what I want? Still choosing it? Must I stop a life of sin with a final one?

No.

No more.

I twist my axe so as the flat side of it will hit where I strike instead of the cutting edge and brained her. She falls from my grasp, head bruised but unconscious. Thinking back, she had been talking ever since I had kicked her away. I knew it, but it didn't properly register until now.

This had always been a problem for me. As my nerves gained the greatest effects from the Lightning Dust, I've always had a problem with being 'easily overstimulated,' as it were. My emotions tend to get way far ahead of me at times, leading to moments of losing self-control in emotional tirades. It's a weakness of my power, I guess. While being able to see, hear, and do more than a normal human, I have a tendency to 'feel' more. (*The irony that a creature like me could still have emotions considering the life I've lived while a normal human would probably be dead inside is not lost on me) Anyway, I fought against the Scout again, but after that outburst, I don't remember much of it. I was fried physically, mentally, and aurally, (*My Aura was at its limits) and just going through the motions after that.

However, I do remember how everyone else fought.

Zack was probably the most impressive. Though the fog had finally set in and was causing trouble for the robots to see through, I did get to see a glimpse of him fighting. Not like I had a choice in the matter.

I mean, he was on fire.

Literally.

It was explained later to me that when he gets excited by anger, battle lust, and the like, his Dust gets activated. Like how mine did when the electricity was playing between my fingers. His covers him in super dense flames, actually causing his own pressure system to go where he goes. This meant that he was the only one without the benefit of the fog covering his movements, as the fog would evaporate twenty yards away from him. He was so inflamed that nothing would catch on fire, but would instead instantly turn to ash and charcoal. I have no idea how his armor stayed in shape afterwards.

The robots had the worst of it. They had containment systems to help regulate the Lava Dust in their weapons compartments, but that only regulated the insides of their bodies. The second Zack got within ten feet of an A.P, its systems would fail, causing it to melt both from the inside and the outside. Scouts would become puddles at fifteen feet.

They adapted quickly though, and began attacking him from a distance. Zack was caught dodging for the longest time, and I had to keep fighting to survive myself, so I wasn't able to help. But then Zack found that lumps of burnt tree trunks were easy to grab and started chucking them at any droid that started firing on him.

I saw Cassy and the other Hunters fight together. It was . . . well, interesting. See, I hadn't fought alongside anyone in the longest time. I had only seen teamwork once after Priest 'disappeared,' and that was between two Hunters that were trying to kill me. So seeing them use teamwork was a whole new experience for me altogether. Cassy generally came in first and blinded the opponents with her staff while either Chaz or Haily attacked. Haily was especially dangerous, as whenever she went for a kill, she just jumped on the robots head, let her cloak cover most of it, and after a moment, jump off. But everywhere that the cloak covered was now gone. The marks were smooth, like somebody had simply to an eraser to a three-D picture.

Once Zack had taken out the first car, everything started happening fast. All the robots paused for a moment, which I realize now was that they were receiving orders. Then, as one, all the Scouts and A.P.s that were heading for us turned and started moving towards the Hunter.

"Their trying for a hostage situation," I said, now able to look from the cover of the Nevermore carcass I was recently hiding behind to protect from the cover of fire I was just under. I ran out and aimed to do silent kills until I got to where the others were and protect them.

But before I started my swing for the first automaton, I heard it go _k-cik_ , then a slow his.

I knew what that meant.

It was self-destructing with a near full load of Lava Dust inside of it.

I was a trap.

Not giving myself time to panic, I started focusing all the light I could to form an orb around me. I didn't focus on the color or where it was from, I just needed to make a shield that would protect me. I pulled from everything. There were parts where light didn't seem to exist anymore, I was pulling it in so fast. I kept pulling, my brain seeing things in slow motion as I ran closer to when the thing would explode.

Pull.

Pull!

PULL!

I was still pulling the light when the droid exploded. Luckily, explosions and lava give off a loooots of light, so I was able to form a protective orb just before anything dangerous could touch me. (*By the way, all of this happened in the span of a panicked second) But still, the sheer force of the explosion was strong enough to send me flying over a hundred yards away. (*Not even kidding. Those droids run on some strong stuff. I thought a meteor had hit for a second) At some point in the flight, I must have blacked out, because I don't remember the part of my sudden flight where I shot up.

I only remember a moment of weightlessness, then a slowly increasing falling sensation, then the crash of the landing. Thank the Glow I didn't break something important, or else I would be dead right now. On the ground of my protective bubble, I surveyed my landing site for danger and escape routes. Arms and legs spread around me in a position like a feral animal deciding to fight or flee, nothing showed any sign of immediate threat. I was in my own crater, the bodies of Scouts and dead plant life hiding me nicely from view. I was safe for now.

But there was a problem: I was trapped.

In my attempt to make a light shield that could block the force of the explosion, I had made it too solid. It wasn't fading away when I stopped focusing on it. If it weren't for it, I would be dead, but now I was stuck inside of a shining, see-through bubble that I did not know how to escape from.

At first, I was curious. I had never made anything with my Semblance that stayed around as long as the orb did. I moved to a crouch in my new shell and, after a moment, touched the sides with the palm of my hand. From what I could tell, the light was cool to the touch, but reacted a light in the form of a sudden rainbow discoloration wherever my hand touched, like a paintbrush with an oil that did not know what color to be. But when I tried to push through the orb, the colors would flare and dance like mad on the surface. It felt as if I were trying to push a section of strong glass.

I gave one area I hadn't touched yet a quick and solid punch. The area changed into a kaleidoscope of colors like the other area, but only exactly where I had made contact and stopped changing when I stopped touching it. But it held. I moved my face close to another clear section and breathed heavy on the bubble, to see if it fogged. It didn't, so I tried the newly colored areas. I got results then.

The only idea I had as to why this rushed shield was still holding when all my other assorted hard light creations usually faded in seconds was that it was still being powered somehow. I knew that if I made something red in a red room, it would fade slower than in a room of a different color. So since I had pulled from every strand of light I could mentally hold to make this new shield, it must be pulling from all the light around it to continue functioning. That would explain why it was clear wherever I hadn't directly touched it. The discoloration that I had made everywhere else must be from me mushing the strands of light together, causing them to overlap and mixing their wavelengths to new kinds of color. It would also explain why the coloration would disappear as I thought about this. As new colors, they didn't have anything to pull light like their own and soon vanished.

I tried touching the areas again, and though they still felt firm, I thought the area might now be weaker. I repeated a few more times, and noticed a small but definite change in the strength of the wall in the exact area. But it would not be enough to get me out all that fast. Especially if the walls are airtight. I can hold my breath for a while, but I needed a fresh source after the fighting I've been doing.

I decided to concentrate on the light again and see if I still had control over it. Focusing, I reach out gently and tried to draw a small dot of red on the surface. If I could do it with its own light, I could get out.

At first, the light wouldn't do as I . . . I'm not sure how to phrase this next part. As I commanded? No, that smacks of ego, and I'll have nothing to do with that emotion. Asked? No, because I can't take no for an answer. Persuaded? I guess, but there's more force behind it. Argued? That sounds better, but it sounds crazy to actually say. 'The light wouldn't do as I had argued it to.' Maybe told? That sounds about right. I mean, you can always NOT do what you're told, but you generally do so.

Sorry, lost in thought, I hadn't realized I had still been typing. I'm going to keep it in, though. I think it shows who I am a bit, and I want you to understand who I am. It's kind of vital, as I have big plans that not everyone will think is wise, possible, or even nice if you maliciously twist my words around. Point is, it's there, it's staying, and it's to help you understand me. (*It also helps me feel normal. I never got to relate to anybody, as the second anything like that started, the person would either be killed or get rescued without taking me with them. So I now have this need for being accepted that I didn't even knew I had until I was free. Let me tell you, it is a really weird transition period from instantly thinking 'how do I kill all of them' in a crowd to 'how do I get them to like me?')

So, at first, the light wouldn't do as I told it to. I hadn't had this problem in years, not since when I had first obtained my Semblance. I put more effort into it, and it gave away more, but still not enough for what I wanted. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and started feeling the way the bubble's light was acting, how it behaved. (*I don't have a better analogy for how the light was acting other than the one I'm about to say, and it doesn't even come close to how light actually feels and acts when I use it. However, I'm not that creative, so I'm just going to stick to it and hope for the best) Normal light, when I'm not making it do anything, tends to act like an old carpet: has its details up close, but blends in quickly when you move away from the source it came from. (*All things produce light, but to the eyes of a normal person, a certain amount is required to actually register in our eyes. If the item itself cannot make it, it can reflect the light around it into what most resembles it color. That's why everything turns shades of red from a red light instead of everything being red on red. But with my eyes, I see a much broader spectrum than the norm. And more accurately. I can actually see the waves of light energy as they float and mingle in the air. It was something I was born with, but whenever I think about it, I always think that what I see must be marvelous)

In this instance, a larger than normal amount of light was wrapping themselves in different directions like threads instead of the usual sheets they normally act like. (*Again, bad metaphor, but I got nothing else) I felt around more, astonished at what I had made in a panic. I had always been able to make light fold, curve, and even make multiple waves of color phase into each other to form a solid mass, but I had always had to work with the original shape of the wave. This was the first time I had seen it change size to fit my needs. (*Don't even ask me how I knew they had changed from their original shape without actually seeing or sensing them properly until now. There's no way on Remnant I can make you understand that without a few dozen physics lessons) I wanted to learn more, to see if I could do it again.

But right now, I needed to make it stop.

Pushing the tip of one wave (*Don't ask, you won't get it) through the wall of the bubble, I slowly started making a hole for air to come through. I focus back on my surroundings again before I made a mistake and allowed an A. P. or something to get the drop on me. Nothing around me beside the rusting droids and the dying plant life, so I continued. Just as I had made a hole about the size for me to crawl through, I heard running feet coming from somewhere. I poked my head out briefly to see what the outside of my bubble looked like (*Solid black, as it was pulling in light and not reflecting or shining any itself) and set a mirage that looked as if the orb were just an orb.

A large pack of Beowolves ran from the edge of the forest behind me and over my crater, running in the direction of the greater fight ahead. They must have been attracted by the battle. Grimm always go to where there are negative emotions, so it makes sense that a pack or two would come to the fight.

But then another, clearly separate group of Beowolves came across the clearing. Then some Alpha Ursa lumbered past. Soon, many different kinds of Grimm were jumping, running, slithering, and even rolling past where I had landed. I couldn't understand what I was seeing at first, there were so many. Why were so many running to the fight? The entire forest shouldn't have been THIS full of Grimm naturally. Were they ALL attracted by the battle? But if they came from the entire forest, something must have sent a huge sign telling them to come here. But what? The explosions were loud, but they couldn't reach far enough for these kinds of crowds.

Maybe it was me. In that fight with Schnee, I had let everything I had been holding in just vent through me. All that anger and pain and misery. I had never been so emotional. I mean, I was wreathed in lightning and making patches of darkness when I almost killed her. I didn't even know it was possible to have a Semblance go out of control in anger like mine did. I certainly never had lines of electricity play through my fingers.

In any case, this may be a good thing. With this number of Grimm coming here, I and my allies could escape in the chaos.

But first, I had to get out of here.

Letting the mirage I had made across the hole dissipate, I rolled out onto the indented earth. I made a simple Beowulf disguise with my Semblance and ran with the mass of Grimm, taking care to stay out of touching distance. I couldn't concentrate enough to make the light an actual barrier because my head was just a lump of pain at this point. So I had to make sure they didn't pass through the mirage I had made, or else I would be found out by the entire pack.

As I ran, the only upright Grimm in the entire heard, I tried to think about what I should do next. I couldn't fight for much longer, and I doubt that many of the others could at this point, either. We had to leave now as the area gets swarmed by Grimm. Maybe we could take one of the cars half-way to safety, hoof it the rest of the way, and then plan properly from there. I hope Zack hasn't taken them all out yet.

I get back to the clearing, and it is just absolute chaos. Grimm are swarming like conscious water, A.P.s are switching arms and legs just to stay standing, Scouts are weighing down larger Grimm with their limp bodies, and anything still standing is being torn apart by everything else.

And I had to fight through AAAALLLL of this.

I'm not going to describe what I had to do to get through this, as I have already told you before the fighting started. It was just mayhem. I cannot stress this enough. I fainted for the first time in six years without medication. It was that bad.

So, after the first part of hell on earth, I managed to find Zack. He no longer burned like a part of a sun, so getting to him was relatively easy. I mean, he was as jam packed as everything else was in that battlefield.

"Zack!" I yelled over the roar of everything. "We need to find the others and fall back! Do you know where the others might me!?"

"I saw them ten minutes ago eastwards!" he replied. "Follow me!"

We went through the crowd, every blow needing to kill around three to four things at a time, or else our lives would make up for the deficit. My arms were burning so bad by the time we found them, I was sure that Zack could make invisible flames and was doing so on my arms. The others had made their own small circle to fight on, and I saw that Priest, Clar, and Joseph were there as well. I then realized that the fog wasn't anywhere to be seen.

We kept pushing through, but my body was starting to give out on me. My arms were numb from repeatedly slicing Grimm and blocking attacks. I was getting slower and slow by the second. I couldn't focus on anything but the next thing that was attacking me, as my head was nothing but a cage of agony at that point.

But I pushed on.

I had to.

I learned a lot about fighting with someone I had forgotten about when I use to fight alongside Priest. I learned that if I moved to cover Zack more, He would move to cover me more. Zack was hard to help at first. Not because he made a lot of openings for enemies to attack him, but I had to get use to him almost hitting me in his fighting technique. His basis for fighting was to grab one thing, bash the hell out of anything near him with it, and then grab something else when the first thing was too dented, too small, or too limp to hit with.

(*I made a video version of this account at one point, and Zack described my fighting style at this juncture. I decided to keep it in for the moment, as I think it reflects his way of thinking a little bit while describing me at the same time)

Kuraz was a true combatant himself. Where I would usually obliterate my enemy with my power, he would strike quick and lethal. I had never seen another man lose no momentum when cutting through the sternum of an Ursa, no matter the sharpness of the blade. He did show effort when he used his Semblance, but he never stopped moving or slowed down. I thought, at times, he would be killed when a lucky paw slipped through his defenses or a bullet in a seam of his armor, but he would simply move with the new momentum, add it to his next attack, and heal whatever damage he had taken when given the chance.

But the chances were getting briefer and farther between. The mass of bodies and metal machines were slowing our progress. The only reason we were moving at all is because 'The Programs' battle bots were also fighting the Grimm, and they in term them. The chaos that day could never be understated. But in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.

And I had a very dark one to consider.

Should I leave the others and make it out of this place on my own, or should I risk my life for people I don't know or haven't seen in a decade? I was sure I could make it out of their by myself, even in my current state. I just need make a strong light wall/plow around me and run. But I didn't know what to expect when I got out of this field. The Grimm were still coming, but they were easy to deal with. I may lose a hand, maybe an arm, but I could get out of that. Anything else may have trouble with them, but that's not a guarantee of success.

No, if I didn't keep my current allies, then I would be isolated and weak. I need to find the others.

We trudged through the mass, our arms becoming heavier by the second. We were blessed with the benefit of knowing we were going in the right direction by Priests constant use of light. She mainly focused on healing the others as they fought, but the light she shines stilled made it hard for enemies to see and easy for us to follow. Around fifty feet away, Zack tries to yell over the fighting to the others.

Before he goes on, I need to say something real quick. You gotta understand that I am use to hunting, which requires silence above all else. Also, with powers like mine, I am very scary to people. So I'm not use to yelling over noises, because I was raised in a tribe where that could scare away prey and people alike.

So when I was able to boom across the area without a problem, I was the one that scared him for a second.

A costly second.

From his right, a being charged from the Grimm and straight into him. I was shocked, not by the suddenness of the creatures' appearance, but the appearance of the creature itself. It was shaped like a man, bearing heavy, black plated armor as thick as my own. There were symbols etched into the surfaces of the metal, archaic ruins made of blue Dusts that steamed from the surface. The armor itself looked . . . decayed. Not rusted or badly forged, but as if the gear was actually dying, being frayed at the joints and warped in places. The dark steel of the protective gear also seemed to absorb the light as well, causing a permanent shade to cover his being.

But it didn't do anything to hide his deformity.

He was literally made out of dead body parts. I am not making this up. It was easy to tell because his skin showed from under the weird lighting effect of his armor, and it was mismatched. But the really horrifying thing was that it was made with Duster body parts. (*A Dusters skin tone relates to the Dust in their blood. So white Dust makes pale skin, gold Dust a little yellow, red looks tan, etcetera. His skin changed color from body part to body part) It was built around eight feet tall, but stayed hunched over while we fought. It was also lopsided, no side quick equal to the other, making a real embodiment of a macabre appearance.

The thing forced back Zack into the mass of Grimm, but the mass moved aside. Zack was forced deep into the crowd, getting lost from my sight for a moment. But as the thing appeared, the mass gave us a wide birth. Even the Grimm, who love death and negative emotions, could not withstand the sight of the foul creature that had bulldozed Zack away. Soon all of us were given a twenty meter radius of room, with the undead at the center.

"Well," a feminine voice said outside of the circle. "I guess it's just you and me, Paladin."

I turned to my left to see another Duster walking in on the other side of the ring. She was around five foot five, draped in tight, dark clothing, very much like what Clar wore. But everything about her appearance spoke of danger. Skulls of different sizes and animals draped many parts of her as a kind of morbid decoration. Gems of disgusting colors shined from the shade of folds and crevices, making a horrible aura of disgusting green, puss yellow, and bruised purple surround her. The look of evil was greater enhanced by her actual presence, which oozed a lust of blood I had never wanted to feel for anyone. I was instantly back to one hundred percent fighting status, for to be anything else around this woman would be dangerous.

During the lull, I saw the weapons they carried. The amalgamation carried a large, two handed sword, the sides covered with ruins that glowed a deep green, like that of swamp muck. The other held a dark purple orb in one hand and a dagger with an empty rod in the middle of the blade. It probably acted as a Dust Wand. Fill the middle tube with whatever Dust, and your Semblance will act accordingly. But what was strange about the dagger was that the tube was marked at intervals, like a measuring cup.

"Get off me!" shouted Zack, and he threw the beast straight up into the air. I didn't focus on how high it went, as all of my attention was on the female.

"Do I know you?" I asked as Zack got on his feet.

"No, but you will," she said, an air of complete ego tainting her every syllable. "I am designated Warlock 1, head test-maker of 'The Program,' and superior to all of those with Dust for blood. You and your little coup here have caused quite a rebellion here. It's rather charming, really. I especially loved how you made the Schnee woman beg. I honestly would have let you go at that point, but then you had to spare her life. Tsk, tsk, tsk! That just won't do, Pally. The head of 'The Program' and I want you to be a ruthless killing machine. Such a weapon cannot be allowed to show mercy at this late stage of development."

"You know," I said, "I would find your tone threatening if your little goon wasn't recently thrown into orbit."

"I didn't toss him THAT hard," Zack said. (*I know now that he can actually do that, but at that moment, it really confused me. Which might have killed me if the next instant hadn't happened)

Suddenly, the walking dead thing fell from the sky flat on its face/

"See?" Zack said. "Still came down."

"Enough," sighed the woman. "Franklen, would you be so kind as to get up off of that ugly thing you call a face and prepare to fight, that would be lovely."

The ruins he carried flared for a brief second, then thing swung from its place in the dirt and pulled out its humongous sword.

"So I guess you don't want to leave 'The Program,' huh?" I asked.

"Why on Remnant would I want to leave 'The Program?'" she asked.

"Guess that's a no," Zack said.

"How about you, big guy?" I asked.

"Don't bother, light bulb," said the woman. "The thing you're talking to is not much more than a simple shell of better experiments laid to rest. Oh, that reminds me! I never introduced ourselves. I am Lilith Bronwen Daeva, and my pet here is Franklen Than Victor."

I saw the things eyes move toward her as his name was mentioned, but otherwise, he didn't move an inch in his stance.

"Well, I guess I'm -"

"Kuraz, yes, I know. I was watching as you were conversing with that little harlot. What a ridiculous name."

"Well, you forgot to teach adlibbing in your shitty tests."

"I'll be sure to fix that after I add your body parts to my toy."

And that's when we fought.


	6. Chapter 6

**Ch. 6**

Zack took care of the big guy, his strength able to compensate for the brutes size. I rushed to Lilith, using my inherent Dust to add as much speed as possible to my dash. She was ready, however. As I rand, she waved her wand again, and the ground in front of me turns extremely hot, burning through the soles of my boots. I jumped high and saw that the wand now had another bar glowing on it, this time orange. I spun from the sky and delivered a full weighted over hand chop on her. She dodged and stabbed me in the waist game of my armor. Another notch in the wand, this time yellow.

She fired another fireball, forcing me to make a wall of red from the flames to block the rest of the deadly attack. Another notch of red on the wand. (*There's a point for me describing the notches, but that will be obvious later. Way later. Like, twenty chapters later. I'll tell you more of why this is, but I need you to understand that there IS a purpose to this)

I strike fast with a shield bash, which was blocked with a blue counterforce. A notch of blue. I spin with the force and go for a backhand strike. I manage to score a small hit across her arm, drawing black blood. She snarled, wiped the blood on her blade, and then came at me again. I blocked with my shield, but the blood warped the metal wherever it touched. I kneed her in the gut, then swiped a leg out from under her with the same leg. She pivoted on the other one and went with a backhand slap with the hand holding the orb. My helmet was grazed, but again the metal was warped where she touched me.

I jumped back and made the light around my armor more solid. Now she would hit my light armor before hitting my actual armor. I again went with a shield bash, but at the last second I jumped. Another counter force, this time green. I spun with it and delivered another counter backhand chop. However, now in the air, I use the expected block as leverage to flip over her and heel kick her solidly in the back. Then, pouncing on one leg, I follow with a shoulder bash between her shoulder blades.

She ducks under the blow, making me go right over her with my attack. As I get back on my feet, she point the blade wand at me. I see that there is now a black and green notch on the middle tube.

"Die," she says, and the colored notches all rush to the tip of her blade. Red, orange, blue, yellow, green, and black swirl around the tip in an elemental ball of light before launching at me. I do what I can to raise a light shield up in time, but it won't be enough.

But as I make a wall of gold, a section of ground between me and the attack raises from the ground, making a new wall of charred Remnant that blocks the attack. The explosion was an amazing swirl of dark and vile colors. I know that that sounds contradictory, but as a guy who fights with light, I've learned that a bunch of ugly colors can make some incredible sights. It's not too saw that they inspire positive emotions, just that they can inspire awe.

"Sorry we're late," said Clar. "We were stuck on how to move through the frozen mass of Grimm."

I turned to see that Clar, Priest, and the younger Hunters were coming into the circle through a path of their own forging.

"She controls the other one," I said. "Take her out, you also take him out."

"What, no thank you?" Clar asked.

"I'll kiss you when we're out of here."

"Like hell you will," Zack and Priest said.

"Look, can we focus on the enemy Dusters for now, please?" I said, trying to get them focused.

"Wait," said Cassy. "If they're Dusters like you, why not ask them to join us?"

"Tried it."

"And?"

Zack was then thrown by the big brute at us, causing us all to dodge so as not to hurt anybody.

"That was a summary response," I said.

"Oh, you brought our renegade brother and washed-up sisters," Lilith said. "I'm ever so happy. Now I can deal with you all at once. Franklen, make us a party, would you?"

So said, Franklen smashed his hand into the grown, making his fist buried to the wrist. I saw a weird, moving shade run across his arm under his arm and pulse across the ground. After a moment, the ground began to quiver at certain parts. Cracks began to form in the solid soil. At one area, a tiny, bony hand began to poke from the ground.

All around, dead bodies were coming from the ground. From squirrels to wolves, deer to birds, the buried dead were coming back to life.

"Hmph," said Lilith. "I've seen you make better gatherings. Then again, they were at cemeteries."

The limping carcasses were given a wide berth from the Grimm and droids. I saw one dying Grimm get walked on by a small, limping squirrel. Wherever the thing touched, the flesh . . . wilted. It didn't just die, it decayed at an extreme rate.

I heard a scream of pain. Turning, I saw Cassys leg get grazed by a mostly skeleton snake. The edges of her wound where it touched were black, the blood initially dark and disease-looking, the muscle now visible.

"Priest!" I yelled. "I need you to focus on healing these wounds. Clar, give her some protection so she's safe to do so. Nobody touch these things bare-skinned. We all need to start getting out of here."

"You'll never escape," Lilith said. "His death thralls will follow you all the way to the other side of Remnant."

"We'redeadwe'redeadwe'redead," repeated Joseph.

"Fall back," Chaz said. "We're getting out of here."

Priest got to healing Cassy as Clar protected them. Zack got distracted in fighting the thralls, so I went back to fighting Lilith. If I knocked her out, it may get her pet and her pets' pets off of us. I charge again, getting ready to hit her with the flat of my axe. (*Killing her was something I was going to avoid at all costs. Even if she was as bad as she described herself to be - making the tests, working with the enemy, loving the pain and misery of others - I was not going to kill what was essentially my sister. Remember, Dusters are made from machines, so family ties are rather strange)

But the behemoth blocked my path, scoring a hard hit across my shield arm with his weapon. The pain was intense. There was a coating of some deadly substance on the metal. I swear I felt grubs burrowing into my bones. I drop to the ground, gasping in pain.

"PALADIN!" Priest cried as my vision begins flashing black spots. Everything is momentarily blurry from the agony of my arm, and I feel my head resting in the cool dirt. I see Lilith sneering over me. She's proud that her little lapdog took care of me so easily. He's there as well, apathetic to what he has just done. He doesn't care about the state he has put me in or what will happen to anything around him.

But it can't end like this. I had barely even gotten free of 'The Program,' and I'm going to die like it never mattered. The others are too overcrowded to save me, as I lay here in complete misery. I can't accept this. I can never accepts this. I will not allow this to be my final stand.

I begin to focus on a last ditch effort. I pull every last once of power of the remaining Dust in my body and I put it all in my good hand.

"So this is it," Lilith says over me. "I thought you were supposed to be the best of us. Your scores were always the highest out of all the other 'Dusters,' as you put them. Even those of your own category never performed as well as you did. But I guess that was the problem. You never faced any part of the real world we didn't think you couldn't handle."

"You know," I wheezed between labored breaths, "You talk . . . too much."

So said, I thrusted my hand at them and released all of the Dust energy I had been storing. Five bolts of lightning shot from my fingers. Three hit Lilith, one even getting her in the head. The other two managed to graze Franklen, but he shrugged them off as if they were nothing.

Lilith flew off a few feet from the maneuver I pulled, landing face first into the ground. Frank sighed and went over to her. He checked her pulse and, finding her only knocked out, put her over her shoulder. He then turns to me.

"You can go now," he said, his voice pure gravel.

"You're not . . . gonna . . . capture us?" I asked.

"I don't care," he said. "But you may want to move as soon as you can. The Grimm were scared of Lilith, but with her knocked out, they'll become violent again."

He turned and walked into the crowd, given a wide berth by the Grimm. His thralls went back to being dead, and I pass out in pain, fatigue, and relief.

All in all, a hectic escape.

"He handled that rather well," said the bigger of the two in a sarcastic tone.

"He did, actually," said the other. "He didn't allow the fear a wound like that inherently holds control him and instead took measures to ensure that everyone would not be left defenseless of the threat, while at the same time dealing with the threat himself so as not to endanger his new friends."

"That may be, but he still lost the fight and is about to lose his life."

"I'll take care of that."

The skinny one raised a boney, white hand in the direction of the ongoing conflict. Shadow wrapped around his hand, swirling into an unseen vortex in his palm. Suddenly, he flicked his wrist and sent the dark essence into the air. If one paid close attention, they would have seen the black, now thin substance seep into the heads of the Grimm. The result was quick, effective, and very subtle.

The Grimm, as a whole, slowly lost the will to fight. Their desire for pain and negativity was nearly quenched, and so decided that they didn't need to risk their lives killing the few survivors to completely satisfy them. They could always hunt some of the fearful wildlife that had ran from their massing.

As such, a large majority of the monsters left the field, no longer interested in the deadly quarry (*Who would be my new found friends) and walked off the empty battlefield. The ones relatively close to the others would not leave, but they were small in number compared to what was now leaving the field.

"That should give them some reprieve," said the skeletal one.

"Let's hope so," said the other. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must reprimand your subordinates. They both know better than to act as they did."

"Do not go easy on them. She knows better than to gloat too much, and I would think he would have learned by now not to walk from a fight we tasked him with."

"I hate that I agree with you on this."

"Then use your anger as you tell them off. I must report our mission status to Ironwood."

I woke up in a small shack made of old wood and a moss-covered ceiling. The bed I was in was a simple thing, carved out of a stone like a bowl and filled with dry grass, dead weeds, and more moss. The cover was a simple sheet of linen, and the blanket a dirty thing once cotton. It had a small table and a simple fireplace in one corner made of rocks and baked clay mixed long ago, with a small spit with which three pigs currently turned slowly. Priest was the one spinning the pigs, half asleep and in a pair of brown shorts and a red T-shirt. Her head rested in her free hand and her eyes were half closed.

I thought back to what had happened before I had woken up, as I usually do ever since 'The Program' started drugging me and leaving me in weird places. There was the mass of Grimm, then I fought Lilith, I organized the others to fend of Franklens thrall hounds, I used the last of my inner Dust, Frank walked away with Lilith, and . . . that's when I blacked out.

I rose from my bed, startling Priest from her stupor. She ran to me as I found that I was now wearing a plain-gold T-shirt and a pair of beige cargo pants.

"Hey, big guy," she said, "take it easy. You really taxed yourself at the fight. Don't try to move so fast."

"I'm rather use to it," I told her, turning myself so as to sit on the lip of my bed. I rubbed the linen to feel the softness of the foliage underneath. "Did you know I haven't slept in a bed for over six years? 'The Program' would instead leave me in an empty room, completely bare, the door such that it became another wall when closed."

"That doesn't surprise me. But how are you feeling? You've been out for a full day."

"I'm fine now. My nerves are very dependent on Dust, so if I use too much of what's in me, I go into a kind of coma until my body figures out how to work again."

"Well, still, take it easy, okay?"

"Oh, trust me, I plan to enjoy myself by relaxing for a few minutes. But I gotta know, how did we make it out after I clocked out?"

"Well, after you blacked out, most of the Grimm lost interest in us and walked off. Not the ones near us when you fainted, but after we killed them all, the rest were long gone. So we took the opportunity to bug out and head back to Zack and Clars village, Refuge."

A distinct smell of burning pork interrupted our conversation at that point. Priest ran over to the spit and quickly put it on the table. She pulled a small cooking knife from her pocket and peeled the charred skin of the middle hog, the black pieces shattering as they fell on the wooden surface.

"Okay," she said. "Not my best work, but these guys are ready for consumption. Which one would you like?"

"I'll be nice and take the one you worked hard to save," I said.

"Ah come one, you must be starving! Here, take the biggest one. She should be arriving any minute now with some fruit."

"She?" I asked.

As if on que, the door opened and a small woman walked in. Around five feet even, she had bright blue eyes, short, white hair, and small but various wrinkles all over her face. A small bead of sweat ran down the side of her face as she held two large baskets of various fruits and vegetables under her arms.

"Oh," she said, a soft voice that instantly like the woman, "You're awake."

"Let me get that for you," I said as I got up from my bed.

"No no, it's fine. I got this."

"You've have been so kind as to feed me. Please let me do this small task to show my appreciation."

"Well, if you insist, then take both of them. My back is killing me."

So said, I grabbed the baskets and bring them to the table.

"Put them next to the table on the side closest to the wall," Priest instructed. "I need the room right now to finish the pigs."

As she worked on the meat, I walked over to where the new woman.

"I haven't introduced myself," I said.

"Don't bother," she said, "I know you don't have a name yet besides what they gave you, and unless you're as weird as that one there, you probably don't want to be called by the same name here."

"Fair enough," I said, and sat down on the other end of the bed where she sat. She constantly rubbed the lower part of her back. "Is something wrong with you?"

She gave a short laugh at that.

"You know," she said, "you being bigger than the other ones brought here by Zack and the others, I thought you would have more manners than that."

"How do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

"The way you asked that question was very rude. A better way to say it would have been 'Are you alright.'"

"Well, are you?"

She chuckled.

"I'm fine, my body is just a little too old for hard labor."

I used my Semblance to see the condition of her back muscles. It was an average case of overstimulation to a main muscle group with a side of stress, so I reached over and gave her a quick shine of healing light.

"Well, I'll be," she said as the pain faded away and she did her best to see what I was doing to make it so. "I knew that 'The Program' made weapons out of people, but I didn't think that they would make an angel like you."

"I'm no angel," I said, "And I would ask of you not to say that name if you don't have to. Now, to go back a bit in this conversation, you mentioned something about there being others?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "She over there would not stop trying to find you. So when she was lucky enough to find another base that once held you and the others, she would storm in as soon as she thought she had the power and try to save others like you. So many of your kind have been in this room."

"Will I be able to meet them soon?"

As soon as I asked, her mood changed and became gloomy.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but whenever she found one willing to come with her, they would be too younger. They never survived more than a few days. It actually looked like you would become like the majority and not make it."

Waves of emotions rolled over me. She had tried to save others like me? But they never made it because they were so younger. I should have gotten out of there sooner. I shouldn't have kept her in fear of what they were doing to me. Why did I think staying in 'The Program' was ever a good idea? All that happened was a lot of death.

I looked at Priest as she made dinner. She had a huge smile on her face and even radiated a soft glow, no doubt the result of her excitement and her Dust.

"Well," I said, "at least she's happy now."

"Yes," said the woman, "I have never seen her so bright before. You must really mean a lot to her."

"We were probably the closest thing to siblings in 'The Program.' Not only were we partners, but we also have the same Semblance. It's a unique . . . kinship that we share."

"Well, I'm just glad that you are awake and well-rested. I don't think she could have taken it if you had died."

"Dinner's ready!" Priest said. "Now stop talking about me and eat this wonderful food."

"Yes, ma'am," I said as I went to eat at the table. "Oh, Priest, can I get any Gold Dust anywhere nearby? I'm going to need to refuel on that as well."

"I got one for you right here," she said as she took a glass bottle of the magical substance from another pocket.

"Thank you," I said as I took the bottle. I grabbed a plate, filled it with all kinds of food, sprinkled a light coat of Dust over it, and chowed down.

"I still can't get over the fact that you straight up eat Dust," she said. "I would think that would be lethal."

"For normal people," I said, "it is. But our bodies run on this stuff, so we had do have some natural way of absorbing it."

"I've been meaning to ask you," Priest said, "when I looked into your body after you had fainted, I saw that they had made a lot more operation on you. If I'm going to heal you in the future, I need to know what else is in you. You know, organs and chemicals and such."

"NOT while I'm eating," the woman said. "Wait until I've left the room once I'm done."

"Okay," I said. "So, Priest, you've been out of 'The Program' a lot longer than me. What's it like?"

"Oh, you'll love it. No walls if you don't want any, free to move as you like, do mostly as you please, and sooooo many tasty foods."

"Do mostly as I please?"

"Well, if you try to kill anyone, people would try and stop you."

"True. What are people like?"

"People?"

"The only ones that talk with me would only tell me what I had to do or talked about my statistics. What to people outside talk about?"

"Would you please not talk with your mouth full, child?"

"Yeah, it's a little gross. But as to your question, people talk about lots of things. They talk about movies and music, book and comics - do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I got a basic teaching in arts, but I've never actually listened to a full song or read a full book."

"Oh my Light! I have to lend you my copy of 'The Story of The Seasons.' It's a wonder fairy tale of what to hope for in the days to come."

"I'll hold you to it."

The conversation continued pretty much like that for a while. I had some of the best food I've ever eaten, I got to talk with an old friend - it was the best time of my life. But there was only a limited amount of food at the table, so we wrapped it up when all the plates were empty.

"Priest," said the woman, "Please take care of the plates. I need to go babysit Melissa's children as she goes out hunting today."

"Tell Nick I said hi," she called as the woman walked out the door.

"So who was she?" I asked, never getting a name from her.

"That was Malinda. She acted as my mother when I got out. Hey, since I'm going to go through the town to get to the river, why don't you come with and I can show you around?"

"Well, I got nothing better to do. Let's go."

I walked out the door and saw the town.

It was a small village, the houses made of the same materials at the hut I walked out of. There wasn't a real order to how the homes were spread out, but it wasn't completely random, either. Pathways between houses were made from the constant tread of the villagers, who mostly wore the same kind of clothes as me. I realized that I had forgotten to ask Priest a really important question.

"Where is my gear?"

"Oh, Zack took it to the blacksmiths shop where he works. He's been holding on to it for you."

"Can we visit his place along the way? I feel . . . exposed without my armor."

"Wow, look at the hunk over there," I heard a girl say as she walked past. She was around five foot five, had short, black hair, tanned skin and dull green eyes. "What I would do to him . . ."

I was instantly on alert.

"What would you do?" I asked her as she walked past what counted as a front yard.

She started at my question, then hurriedly walked off while averting her gave from me. I was about to chase her when Priest put a hand on my arm.

"Paly, stop," she said. "She meant to malice by it. She was actually complimenting you, albeit in a selfish way."

"Well, she should be careful about what she says," I said. "That sounded like a threat to me."

Getting close to my ear, she whispered what she _really_ meant by what she said. I reflexively blushed, but otherwise did not reacted as if she explained a double entendre.

"Oooooh, now I understand. But why did she get embarrassed when I called her on it?"

"Because she was talking to herself, not you."

"But if she's saying it out loud, wouldn't that mean she doesn't care if she's overheard?"

"Apparently not. I know it's weird, but even if your hearing was normal, some things are said without a desired reaction."

"That seems rather pointless."

"I know, but stuff like this happens out here. Anyway, let me show you around."

At that, we walked through the town. Well, I guess it could have been called a small city. There were buildings that were for specific purposes, like a weapon shop and a preserve store. These places were made of thick stone, the thinnest being around a hand span thick. The doors were also made of metal, and swung on large poles rather than separate handles. All of them had submarine-like locking mechanisms.

Zack's shop was no different in design, but the actual look of the place confused me at first. I know about different kinds of blacksmiths, so I knew a lot of different kinds of forges fore wielding the hot fires a smith would need to craft such quality materials. They generally have a large, bulbous room so as to keep the large furnaces for keeping intense heat, or even a large, deep fire pit outside of the buildings themselves. But as I walked up, neither one was visible to me. I stopped not that far from the building and asked about the shop.

"Zack doesn't need a furnace," she told me. "He just increases his body's heat until it reaches the temperature he needs, them molds the metal with his own hands. It's really something you must see to believe."

I believed her. I had seen how hot Zack had gotten in the fight, causing flesh to burn at ten paces. So there was no doubt in my mind that he could bend metal like that. But I had no idea where he would do the work. He still needed a place where he could heat up without burning anything. But there was nothing outside for it. So where did he work?

We walked in, and I had an answer. We had gone inside of the largest furnace I had ever seen. (*I mean large for what it actually was. It was still pretty cramped when compared to an actual living space. At least in terms of height, as my hair touched the roof when fully standing) Me and Priest had to make our own light bubbles just so we could keep cool. Even then, the heat was pressing down on us, baked by Zack as he worked in the middle of the room. He was working on my axe, reforming it with nothing but his hands. It was like watching clay being formed in a dry heat sauna turned way too high.

I was stunned at first as I saw him work. It wasn't because his arms - bare for his work - glowed bright red as he morphed the metal as he worked, but it was because he was working on my axe itself. I didn't know what to think of it. On the one hand, that tool represented 'The Program' and every evil deed that I had ever done. On the other, I had bonded with the weapon. It was an extension of my own body, I had used it so often, and had saved my life many times more than I had killed with it. Was I okay with him salvaging it for whatever he wanted?

After a moment, I decided that it was fine. If he could give the thing new purpose, all is the better. I don't want to keep anything from 'The Program' if I don't have to.

I saw my armor and shield in a corner where a small vent let cool fresh air come from an underground source. Since heat rises, it made a kind of sense that it would be there and not in the roof. (*While normal carbon monoxide is lighter than air, Duster lungs also attach a small particle of used Dust onto it, making it a little heavier) But before going to it, Priest called out.

"Hey, Zack! We're here for Paly's ge - what are you doing!?"

"Oh, hey!" he said. "How you doing, Dreaming Huntsman?"

"Never mind that," Priest said. "What are you doing to his axe?"

"I'm making him a new weapon. What else?"

"You know you need to ask him before you start messing with his stuff! What were you thinking?"

"He didn't want the blade."

"Why would you think that!?"

"Didn't you see the shape it was in?"

"Yeah, so?"

He paused for a second to think of something. (*I should mention that I hadn't even considered the fact that I owned the stuff when thinking about Zack messing with it. I had never actually thought of the gear as 'mine,' just 'The Programs.' So the fact that Priest was making a fuss about it threw me off for a bit)

"Sorry," he finally said. "I forgot you don't work with weapons like me."

"What's that got to do with anything?" she said.

"Well, when you work with weapons and armor for so long, you can gain an estimate of what kind of person holds it. An example would be that if saw a man with a broken blade, you can guess that he jumps into situations first and fights with force. With his blade, it was obvious that he didn't want it. It was only ever repaired by machines. You could tell by how the reworked areas all had the same pattern of repair on them."

"He's right," I said. "Though I only realized it a little before you two started talking."

"Well," she said, "If you're fine with it, then I guess I was in the wrong."

"No you weren't. You didn't have enough info to make a wrong move, just an incorrect one."

"What's the difference?" Zack ask.

"Wrong, in this context, mean it didn't fit with her moral code. Incorrect means that she did something that didn't have the desired outcome. Anyway, will you be needing the rest of the gear as well, or can I take it?"

"Oh, take it. It suits you too well."

"I don't know," Priest said as I bubbled the gear (*It was too hot to touch, so I used light) and brought it over to where I was. "Wouldn't you want something lighter? Something that gives you more speed and agility?"

"Not really. The armor is light enough for me not to be impeded, is stronger than most metals, and I have ways of increasing speed and agility with no problems."

"Okay. Well, we'll leave you to your work, Zack. I'll be showing Dipsy the town."

"Alright," he called as we went through the door. "See you at the ceremony!"

"Right!" she exclaimed as I shut the door. "I had forgotten about that!"

"The ceremony?" I asked.

"Yes! Paly, at the end of the day, there's going to be a small ritual of manhood for all the other boys coming of age. We need to get you to the Headman fast."

"Which way?" I asked, taking this as seriously as if we were saving the boys from certain death. (*For all I knew at the time, we were)

"Follow me," she said. "I know a shortcut to the stage."

And so we ran. I saw a lot of thing not normally seen in a city tour. I saw the fields of small farms as we ran in the middle of them. I saw the dirty result of tightly spaced of houses up close and, in one case, personally. We vaulted over fences, dodged through houses, and leaped over ponds. At one point, we climbed up one building and ran across rooftops. But we arrived to the stage on time.

The stage was just a raised platform of stone on the base of a wide, old tree stump, the corners supported by rusted metal rods in the ground. The thing was about twenty meters across on every side. In the center, a man with a short, white beard, thin wrinkles, and glasses sat at a small, wooden desk with a line leading to its front. The line was mostly younger people, probably around my age. There were parents with a rare one every now and then.

"Get to the back of the line," Priest told me.

We got there and waited. I began the slow process of cooling my gear as Priest fidgeted.

"So what is this ceremony?" I asked as I separated my chest piece from the pile with care and fanned it with a small green turbine. (*Not as noisy, but still had similar power)

"It's this village's way of respecting the moment when someone becomes of age," she explained. "When someone is of the age of eighteen, they go through a small ritual that, for them, makes a boy a man."

"What exactly is this ritual?"

"Later in the day, while the sun it setting, you will approach the Headman, the leader of this village and the one we're about to talk to. He'll have you kneel, say some lines of 'power,'" here she uses quotation fingers, " and will ask you to state your name for everyone else to hear. He'll say a few more things, rub your head with an herb or Dust 'the spirits' tell him to use, say a few more, and then you respectfully leave."

"I wonder if I'll glow again."

"You will. Zack and Clar did when they went through the ceremo - wait, again?"

"Yeah. When I captured Cassy for info, we had a bit of a weird conversation and she did a 'blessing' (*Now fingers that time) thing and I glowed. I glossed over it when I cut my hand to her."

"Oh yeah, you did mention that. Well, you will."

"Okay."

We would have kept talking, but we were finally at the desk of the Headman. He was writing something down on his paper as we approached. A little mirage showed me that it was the names of all the people that had come before us, plus some basic information about them, like family ties.

"State your name?" he said before looking up to see Priest. "Ah, Priest! Glad to see you. Uh, is this the one you saved?"

"Yes, Headman," she said respectfully. "This is Paladin. We're here to participate in the ceremony."

"Good to hear. And what a man he will be. No wonder you've been wanting to save him so badly."

"Headman!" she whined. I just stood there, not understanding what he meant by the last statement. (*I know now, though. Heheh)

"Well," Headman said as he got up to shake my hand, "to introduce myself properly, my name is Hedmund Croutch. I do what I can to keep this place safely running."

"Hello, sir," I said, putting my armor down and shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Yes, well," he said, looking behind me to look at the long line of people behind me, "Sorry to cut this short, but I'll have to talk to you after the ceremony."

"Yes, Headman," Priest said as we walked away from him. "We'll see you later."

"Why do you call him Headman when his name is Hedmund?" I asked as I put on my chest piece.

"Well, the kids thought of it. Since his name sound like 'Head man' and he's in charge of the village, we gave him that nickname. Now come on! Let me show you around."

And that's how much of the day went after that. The buildings were a mix of wood and stone, though the stone ones were primarily for businesses like groceries, tech, and Dust, while wood was mostly for homes and inns. It was beautiful, really, if with a constant theme of discord in how everything was organized and built. Priest told me of everything and everyone we saw. I asked a few questions here and there, but I mostly focused on what was around me.

"We need to think up names for the ceremony," I said towards the end of the tour.

"Yeah," Priest said. "I never really liked my name. What do you want to be called?"

"I know I want Kuraz for my first name, but I don't know about the others."

"Why do you want to keep a name like that?"

"Because I was called that in the first conversation I've ever had with someone outside of 'The Program.' What about you?"

"I was thinking Jalen."

"Isn't that a boys name?"

"Unisex, actually. But we each need two more, don't we?"

"Yeah. Know anywhere we could look up names?"

"I left my Scroll at my place, but we're not far. Let's head over there and we'll look some up."

"Sound battle plan."

And so we went to make a name for ourselves.


	7. Chapter 7

**Ch. 7**

I cannot even begin to explain the annoying behavior Jalen had been when we started talking about names. I just wanted to use whatever sounded nice and discreet. SHE wanted to match names, chose ones with meanings, didn't want the meanings to repeat - I can't - I just wanted a name. Oh, dear Glow! 'Horus is a god of war, but also a god of light, so we shouldn't use that if you want to keep –'Dear Glow, it was so pointless.

In the end, we decided on our names. My name, in full, is Kuraz Horus Rai. Jalen's full name is Levia Candida. Once we were done with that particular madness, we noticed that we were hungry.

"Clair should be running her kitchen shop by now," Jalen said. "Want to go eat there?" (*A kitchen shop is like a restaurant, but people bring the raw materials – game, fruits, exc. – to the cook and ask them to make it a certain way. The adaptable the cook is, the more likely they'll get more business)

"Sure," I said. "I've always wanted to see a functional hunt and eat. Let's go."

We grabbed some of the leftover food from earlier and headed off. It was a ways off from the house, but we soon arrived at the two-story building that was Clairs Kitchen. The bottom was stone, but the top was a dining area with a folding cover that could let light in or block rain.

"She gets so much business, she needed to expand upwards to make room for her customers," Jalen explained. "But she always keeps a table ready for me and Zack. Now you, of course."

"Stop getting my hopes up," I said. "The food you made could never compare to anyone else's."

"We'll see about that when your taste buds are relaxing your mouth muscles."

We walked in, and the place was noisy. People's chatter was everywhere. Laughter, yelling, excited tales of hunts. It was weird for me to stand in that kind of atmosphere. I mean, it was a positive atmosphere. Not something I had much experience with at that point. Imagine the feeling of strangeness of suddenly walking into a fight, but take away the adrenaline caused by fear and instinct. As for the layout of the place, the round tables were placed in diagonal rows across much of the room, with a small bar/kitchen area on one side and a small stage on the opposite, where a man was currently doing something with a tool to make sounds.

"Priest!" called Clair as we walked in. She was wearing blue jeans, a blue shirt, light blue gloves, and a handmade coat that reminded me a little of the ones the doctors wore during chemical analysis of my blood. But all the pockets were filled with various bottles of herbs and spiced, and everything she wore was covered in food stains. She had her hair covered by a tied blue patterned bandana.

"So is he awake?" she asked.

"He's right behind me," Jalen yelled over the din of the room. I was the only one in heavy armor, so I was drawing many stares from everyone. (*Which didn't help me feel welcome in the least) I tried nodding my head at a few of the burlier groups in the room, which took care of the majority of the staring eyes. But the few that still looked at me felt oddly piercing, as if I could feel their harsh criticisms of me in their very gaze. I shook my head of the notion and waved at Clair.

"I figured you'd pull through," she said. "Your table is where it usually is, P. Go on and take a seat."

I followed Jalen to the table. Up close, I could see that the list of acceptable ingredients were etched into the wood, formed into a spiral pattern from center to edge. The center of the table itself had a stack of four plates, four bowls, and four full sets of silverware.

A man came over to take our food.

""We'll have two Magic Specials," Jalen said as hesitantly handed him the food.

"Of course, ma'am," he said, grunting a little at the weight of the baskets. I took a seat opposite of Jalen so we could talk better. Up close, I saw that a spiral list of all acceptable ingredients were carved into the table, with four full sets of eating tools set up at each seat.

"I hope you don't mind that I ordered for you," Jalen said. "The Magic Special is just really, really good. Clair will take a look at everything we've brought to her and decide on a recipe that's completely random, but always fantastic."

"I'm sure it's delicious," I said. "I'm more concerned about the stares I'm getting from everyone else. I'm not exactly blending in at the moment."

"Well, I think you look great and everyone here is just jealous."

"Maybe, but it's no less weird on my end. I kind of feel . . . out of sorts with everything."

"Look, Pal, I know how hard this must be. I may have been saved a lot earlier than you, but I still had a lot of trouble dealing with people. Not only because of 'The Program,' but we also mentally mature faster than normal. So I first thought that humans and Fauna were idiots that had made us by sheer luck."

"Were they really that slow to grow up?"

"Honestly, I think even some 40 year olds are still maturing."

"That must have been tough."

"It was, but then I meet someone. A Faunus boy named Jack. He really proved my assumption of humanity wrong. We actually dated for a while."

"Really?"

"Yeah! We would walk along the river and talk about how stupid people could be sometimes or whatever was bothering us. He would play in the river after a really heated rant. I asked him why he always did that and he said, 'I need to wash more than my hands of this mess they made of me.' He splashed me and soon, we were both playing in the water, splashing each other . . ."

As she talked, she got progressively sadder. It didn't take an expert body reader with super vision to know that he was now dead. I reached over and grabbed her hand, the little bit I knew in comforting a person. She stopped and composed herself.

"I miss him," she whispered as a tear ran down her cheek. I just held on tight to her hand, not knowing what else to do.

After a moment, she pulled herself together and was smiling again.

"Sorry," she said. "I shouldn't be like this. I'm bringing you down."

"It's fine," I said.

I didn't know what to say after that. Unfortunately, someone else joined in.

"Hey," said the intruder. It was a thin man with short, black hair, a thin beard, red eyes and cape, and a button-up shirt with black jeans. "What's with your armor, Shiny?"

"You like it, too?" I said.

"What's it made out of?" he slurred, his eyes not even focused.

"Well . . . um," I was on the spot and I had no idea what to say. (*You see, it's actually made of rolled homogeneous steel with a small mix of gold and depleted uranium around two to three centimeters thick on average, not including the edges of joints. They thin out considerably, and even fold into each other at some joints. It's mostly gold in color, with small Dust shards at areas to help me weaponize the Dust in my body. But saying that would have raised drawn attention to me, and if I gain too much of a reputation, 'The Program' might come looking for me. But I couldn't think of something that would explain both its look and strength without garnering attention) Thank the Glow Jalen did.

"Hey, are you new around here?" she asked, leaning forward a little in his direction.

After taking a moment to align his eyes, he focused completely on her.

"Why, yes," he said, trying to lean in his chair in a way I think was meant to look cool, but otherwise showed just how drunk he was. "I new."

"Well, where are you from?"

"I came to here from Mistral."

"Why did you came all this way from a big city just to stop in this town?"

"Well, sweetheart, if you must know, I'm a Hunter on a job."

My blood instantly went to a boil. Hunters have been the most dangerous thing I have ever fought in my life. They would be the exact thing 'The Program' would send to try and take me back.

"Ooh! What are you Hunting?"

"An alpha Beowolf. It's earned the name 'Night Stalker' with how it hunts, and it's been reported to be around this area."

"Sounds like you could use some help."

"Well, I would certainly love the company, beautiful."

"I meant the both of us," she said, pointing between me and her.

He took another look at me, and I could tell that he wasn't happy about me being there. But I was just happy that he wasn't after me, so I didn't react to it. I DID react to what he said after the look.

"I doubt your friend would be much help in a fight."

"Says the man as he struggles to stay upright," I retorted.

"Hey, it speaks!"

"'It' is also trying to enjoy an old friends company without being interrupted by a drunk."

"Oh, really? And what am I in all of this?"

"Annoying. Now would you go back to whatever it was you were doing before you thought to bother us already?"

"I don't think I like your tone."

"Well, _I KNOW_ I don't like your breath."

"HEY!" Clair called from across the restaurant. Everyone got really quiet, some edging away from us. "What's going over there?"

We looked at each other for a moment. I held eye contact with him, not knowing what else to do at that point but ready for a fight if he tried something.

"Nothing," he said after a heavy moment of silence. "I was just leaving."

He turned and walked away, and slowly conversation went back to normal.

"What was that?" asked Jalen venomously. "Were you trying to pick a fight or something?"

"Wait, what?" I responded. "Is that not what you're supposed to do?"

"What?!"

"I've seen it happen like that all the time when on exercises in towns like this. A man tries to steal a woman's attention while another man is talking with her. The original on talking to the woman tells the guy off after a minute, and doesn't back down until he leaves."

"That's a stupid romantic movie trope!"

"Romantic movie trope? I'm not familiar with those words. What do they mean?"

"Uh, never mind that! The point is, you were about to start a fight with a Hunter. You only just woke up, Paly. I don't want to see you sleep again."

"I understand your concern, but I would have been fine against him."

"I didn't mean the Hunter, I meant Clair! She would have tossed you through the wall and then fix it in five seconds. Literally, I've seen her do it."

"Oh. I guess I should apologies to her."

"Yeah, you should," Clair said as she brought us our food. It looked like a basic stew, but the mix of sweet, hardy scents and the colorful way the fruits and vegetables floated in the brown broth told anyone it was anything but basic. My mouth started watering like mad at the first whiff of the stuff. (*I was originally feed flavorless rations that were made only with the essential my body needed, as made by the scientists. There was never any 'flavor consideration' in 'The Program') "So what was that about, anyway?"

"A Hunter was flirting with me after interrupting a conversation me and Pa - Kuraz were having."

"You decided to keep that ridiculous name?"

"Yeah," I said, "I like it. It's unique."

"That's one way of putting it. Anyway, here're your Magic Specials, which I took the liberty of Dusting up for you. This one's . . . Kuraz, and this one's Priests."

"Thank you, Clair. Here's the Lien."

"Hey, don't bother. It's on the house to celebrate the new guy joining our small town."

As they argued about payment, I focused entirely on the dish in front of me. Looking closely at it, I could see that the broth had small specks of Gold Dust floating inside of it, making it shine rather bright. The smells were intoxicating, fruit and meat and herb given a perfume-like quality as the steam rose from the bowl. I placed my helmet (*Which had been resting under my arm up to this point) on the table and grabbed a spoon. I swirled the solution around, and the colors danced in the shade of the apple slices, pineapple chunks, orange cuts, carrot pieces, potatoes, and so many other things. I brought the spoon up to my mouth, and the scents increased to overpowering levels.

And then I sipped it.

It.

Was.

Bliss.

It was like the Glow itself had blessed me with the purest of sensations. I had to grab my jaw to stop it from spilling the holy elixir that was the soup. So many flavors, so many textures, so many chemical reactions – My sense of taste was being overloaded. (That use to happen to me a lot when I was little. Since the Dust in me enhances my nerves to an extreme, I would be overwhelmed by sounds, lights, and even changes in temperature. It took a lot of patience on 'The Programs' part not to kill me as a babe, but don't confuse this as kindness on their part. I was the only living specimen at the time, as all other attempts had failed to live past five minutes outside of a tank)

My situation must have shown on my face, as the others stopped their conversation and focused completely on me.

"Hey, you alright there?" asked Clair, moving to put a hand on my back. I reflexively pushed her hand away as I tried to process all the sensory information my tongue was relaying to me.

"I completely forgot!" Jalen said as she understood what was going on. She grabbed Clair by the collar and pulled her ear to her mouth to whisper. "Clair, his senses are a lot stronger than ours. You've just overloaded his taste buds!"

"Shit, what do we do?!"

"Get some bland bread, now." Jalen turned back to me as a migraine began to form in a new area inside my brain. "Paly, listen to me. You need to spit the soup out."

I starred at her, aghast. How could I possibly release such a potion as this? Was she mad? Why am I getting a migraine?

"Come on," she said, "we can't make a scene here. It would make Clair look bad."

I slowly understood that my reaction could be considered the result of bad food, so I focus all of my willpower into a singular effort.

I swallowed.

Most of the strength of the soup's flavor was taken away, but I could still feel the blessed sustenance roll down my throat and into my stomach, where it slowly spread throughout my body. I began to glow faintly, my own soul responding to the ecstasy of the biblical broth. Jalen was quick and absorbed the excess light I was emitting. But she had a problem finding a way to release it. After looking around for a moment, she decided to blend the excess with the natural light bulbs. No one was the wiser.

Clair came back with a loaf of soft bread, which I took a large bite out of without thinking. The last of the experience was absorbed into it, and I was back to normal.

"I should have thought of this," Clair said. "I knew you were made of Gold Dust and I should have put two and two together."

"No," I wheezed softly, "It's not your fault. 'The Program' should have thought of something so simple and prepared me for it."

"I still should have thought of it."

"No, honestly, don't worry about it. The food is still great, I was just overwhelmed by it."

"Kind of shows that we're not infallible, huh?" Jalen said.

"What?"

"Well, think about it. 'The Program' Wanted to make super-soldiers, capable of facing any threat that could be faced. Yet you were nearly taken down by a bowl of tasty stew. It's kind of funny."

I was about to retort when the lights dimmed down in the room except for the stage. The men began to cheer about what would soon happen.

"Quiet," whispered Clair, "She's about to go onstage."

I looked to the stage and a woman walked into the middle of it. She had longs, dark hair, long eyelashes, blue eyes, red lips, and wore a simple red dress of some glossy material. A small band formed in the background with their instruments all black so as to blend better into the shadows. The woman herself accepted a microphone a man passed her. As the band began to play the opening of a song, she began to sing. It was a nice song, filled with long notes that she held nicely, the band behind her changing their rhythm to match hers. I forget exactly how it went, but the overall idea of the song she sang was about her being happy that she left someone and now gets to live free. It almost fit the situation I was in, except that she sang about the fun she had with the other one, so I couldn't relate to the song.

Everyone else was in love with it, though. All the guys were dog-eyed about the woman on stage, and all the women off it were looking at her with obvious jealousy. I watched for a bit to see if anyone was going to try anything, but when it was obvious that they weren't, I went back to eating my amazing food. I first tried dunking the bread into the stew, which really cut the overloading aspect of the thing. But after I had soaked up half of the liquid, I realized that I would leave the fruits and meat to dry. So I tried eating some of the solid stuff, but it was almost too much. Luckily, Clair got a waiter to bring me some water to try and cut the stew as a whole, so I instead used it to cut the solids exclusively.

I managed to finish my food as the song ended, with the crowd cheering the woman on stage for her performance.

"So," Jalen said, "did you like it?"

"Great," I said, "once you get around the migraine-causing first bite."

"Again," Clair said, "I'm really sorry for that."

"I was talking about the song," Jalen said.

"Oh," I said. "It was nice."

". . . That's it?"

"Um, yeah."

"I would've thought you'd like her song," Clair said, "Seeing as how you nearly choked on your food because it was too strong."

"I couldn't relate to it, so I didn't go through the emotions a song is supposed to carry you to."

"I think you're overanalyzing it. Can't music be something just to listen to?"

"It can, but it still wouldn't be as satisfying as a song that you can emotionally invest in."

"Wait," Jalen said, a sudden look of confusion on her face. "How the hell do you know about music?"

"They sent me in a lot of villages like this to start trouble and fight a Hunter. So I would come across some music every now and then, maybe even an instrument, and so I know the basics of what music is. Once I did, I used some reasoning to figure out what it was for."

"Alright," said Clair, "Let's hear what you think it is and why."

"Well, at first, I thought it was something to help boost one's spirit in a fight. But when I saw a civilian listening to some as he danced, I scrapped that and thought it a form of entertainment. But then I heard a sad song, so I came up with the new idea that it was something in the lines of art. You know, a way to express yourself. After that, though, I soon heard some dubstep, so my current theory is that it's a way to make you feel emotions whenever you want."

There was a moment of silence as they looked at me blankly.

". . . Wow," said Clair, "You're really bad at telling stories."

"I'm use to giving reports," I said.

"Hey," Jalen said, "Stop talking like that. You're free now. No need to talk about the past."

"What do you mean?"

"Um. . . Well, how to say it. . . What I'm trying to say is that you don't have to dwell on what happened in 'The Program.' You can move one and start a new life without fear of them."

"Okay, I wasn't trying to say it to bring back bad memories. . . Although, now that you mention it, could we give the thing a vague name for conversations between us so as nobody gets any flash-backs or anything? We'll also need it to talk about it in secret."

"Hm," Clair thought out loud. "How about just 'The Program?"

"Alright, I'm down with that." (*And that's how that was done. Don't be confused with how emotional I was when talking about 'The Program' just then when I originally wrote that it brought up bad memories in the beginning. I was conditioned in 'The Program' to not respond emotionally, and it stuck for a while. The anger I felt in the fight with Schnee was the first I've felt in a long time)

"Hey, guys!" Called Zack as he entered the room. He wore black leather pants and a red t-shirt that read 'I have 2 hammers' under a leather jacket. "What I miss?"

"We've decided to call 'The Program' 'The Program' so we can talk about it secretly and without triggering any emotional reactions," I responded.

He stummbled a little at that, what I said catching him off guard.

"Um, okay," he said. "That wasn't something I expected to hear when I walked in here."

"Well," I said, "We're not exactly normal ourselves."

"Hm, fair enough. So have you decided on your names yet?"

"Shush!" Clair said, "I don't wanna hear them yet! I want to hear them shout it out to the crowd during the Ceremony."

"Alright, alright! Keep your apron on. But what about what they plan to do after the Ceremony?"

"After the Ceremony?" I asked.

"Yeah, what do you want to do with your life?"

"Oh, that's easy. I want to free the rest of the Dusters and build us a kingdom to live in."

Everyone stopped and starred at me for a good minute.

"What!?" they all asked.

"I want to free-" I began.

"No, after that," Clair said.

"Make a kingdom for us?"

"What?" Jalen asked.

"Make a kingdom for us," I said, deepening my voice so it could be heard clearer.

"Dude," Zack said, "you have some ambitious dreams if you want to make your own kingdom."

"What do you mean, _my_ own kingdom? I said _our_ own kingdom."

"We don't have dreams to rule anything," Jalen said.

"Okay."

"What?"

"Okay, let me spell this out, as you're all confused about something I've been saying. I want to make a kingdom that will be the main home for the Duster race. I don't care if I rule it, or if you do, or anything like that. But when you look at the facts, the Duster race won't be able to stand on its own in this world without such a place. Humans and Faunas are fighting between themselves right now, so there's pretty much no way that they'll accept a race made by them to be weapons as equals. So we need a place where we have supremacy until it's over between them or we've established ourselves as equals."

"Oh," Clair said. "That makes sense, I guess."

"But couldn't doing something like that be made to show our unwillingness to fraternize with the other races?" Jalen asked. "You know, like a sign of war?"

"It would, but the alternative is that we walk around the other four kingdoms un-unified and subject to new hate and fear."

"Un-unified?" Zack asked.

"Not unified."

"But how would we even go about making a kingdom?" Clair asked. "We need the minimum of a completely tactically advantageous position of grand scale with massive deposits of resources."

"We find a big plain and dig underground, I imagine."

"That's it? Just find a wide plain and dig?"

"For now. First we need to destroy the other bases where they keep the other Dusters."

"Your plan keeps getting more unrealistic by the minute."

"So what do you want to do, play human while our brothers and sisters die at the hands of 'The Program?' Is that what you want to do?"

"No, but we need to be realistic. We could never go against 'The Program' regularly. Priest has nearly died hundreds of times just trying to find you. What makes you think you could do any better than she did?"

She brought up a fair point. While we were stronger, faster, and smarter than the average person, we were still four people. We stood no real chance against our creators, who had an infinite budget, resources, and people to pull from to stop us, not to mention the fact that they were incredibly secretive.

But I couldn't leave others like me to face what I know they face. To fight impossible odds every day for the lab-hacks, to kill innocent people to keep them emotionally distant to the world, to repeatedly undergo surgeries for new organs that may improve their performance. How could anyone leave them like that?

How could she fight me on this?

"Listen," I said, adding an edge to my voice so show my anger at what she suggests. "I will not leave them to suffer like I did. What you experienced in 'The Program' was nothing to what I endured. I WILL save them all, and you WILL help me, as they are OUR kin."

"Watch it," Zack said, getting angry at my own tone. "You don't get to order us around because you've been through shit back at 'The Program.' We're allowed to do as we please out here, so you need to do a better job of persuading us on what you want to do."

"There should be no need to persuade you to begin with. We are the only ones that know of this, of people being grown into weapons, and can actually make some kind of difference. Yet not only do you not want to help them, you don't want to because you feel free to disregard them for your own personal benefit."

"That's not what I said!"

"Then please, explain why you're fighting me on this."

"I'm not fighting you or saying I only want to do what I want. I'm saying that what you propose is so ridiculously huge that I can't in good conscious do this with you. You need to show me something that proves you can do this."

Before I thought of how to respond to that statement, I heard a scream from outside. I perked my head up to hear if it would happen again. My friends paused at first from my seeming reaction, but the second scream was heard much better. I ran outside with the others behind me, putting on my helmet as I passed through the door. A third scream told me where to go, but before I could move towards it, Jalen grabbed my arm to stop me.

"Paly, you idiot!" she said. "This is obviously a trap! 'The Program' knows how you work and will be doing stuff like this at every town that we could've gone to."

I shrugged her off and began running towards the noise. She hadn't been there for years. She didn't know what I'd become in 'The Program.' I may have given them a completely new persona to confuse them. Or I acted crazy while with them. She had no reason to think I was still the same.

But in any case, I ran deeper into the forest on the edge of town. The screams acted as my compass to the trouble. Before I got to close, I made green stairway to the top of one tree and grabbed hold of some branches. From where I was, I could see an alpha Beowolf running after a woman and a small boy. It would have caught up to them had they not been dodging through the woods left and right. But they were about to head into a sparse patch of the woods, so I needed to act fast. Surveying my options, I made an axe of green and slid from the top branch on a ramp of blue.

I kept forming it as I went, matching myself up to the path of the two people and the beast. I got their attention and directed them to a small clearing where I could fight the monster properly. I did my best to tomahawk the thing as it sprinted through the forest, but what it didn't dodge was blocked by the trees. (*I was never that good at throwing things while sliding on a ramp like a skater with flat skates. I could never properly add my velocity into the throw)

As the familial pair entered the clearing, I dropped behind them to block the beast's path. It set its sights on me and made a rather daring leap at me. I brought my shield up and made a few golden support rods to hold it against the force that slammed into me. Just as the thing bounced back from its sudden road block, I took a few steps back and made a giant hammer of brown, cartoon-style. I brought it up, and as I began to slam it down onto the behemoth's head, I filled the head of the hammer with a crimson red light. As it made contact, the brown shattered to release the force of the red straight onto the Grimm.

Shadowy flesh seared from the force of the blinding brilliance, the creature howled in pain, and I never stopped in my charge as I made a sword of gold to plunge into its skull. But as I was about to make contact, a blast from a shotgun like weapon deflected my weapons course, and I had to make do with shoulder-charging the beast farther away from the couple of victims.

The thing squirmed against me until it managed to get its feet on me and pounce off as if in water.

"Any reason you want this thing alive?" I asked the shooter as I kept my eyes on the beast, we now circling each other with gazes locked.

"Can't have you taking my kill," said a voice I didn't expect to hear.

"So this must be 'Night Haunter' or whatever you're after?" I asked as the drunk came out of the clearing to the right of the Grimm.

"Night Stalker," he managed to say with a minor drawl in his voice. "And yes. I'll need to collect the bounty on that thing if I'm going to pay my bar tab."

"Alright, I'll take out its legs and you can take its head."

"Please, amateur, let a pro handle this."

"Said the drunk to the trained killer. If you want to play Hunter, that's fine, but the 'lone ranger' role you're trying to play won't help against something like this."

"Did you forget that I managed to block your god-like sword strike from twenty yards away?"

"Haven't you noticed that it's been paying attention to me even after you got as close as you are right now to it? It knows I'm the bigger threat and it's a dumb daemon animal. Or are your senses waning in your old age?"

"Stop trying to make me hate you as we fight this. I'm too seasoned for you to trick me into being bait."

"You mean too senile."

"Okay, that one was uncalled for."

The Grimm finally turned to look at the man, which is when I used my Dust ability to dash at super speed to get the beasts legs. Surprisingly, the old guy nearly matched my speed, minus a dozen miles an hour. I didn't focus on finesse and simply cut through the kneecaps of the Grimm, dodging under its bulk as it fell. The man stabbed through the head with an oversized sword of his own, about as wide and as long as his torso. The handle had a clockwork face at the pommel, covered in a strong sheet of Plexiglas. (*My eyes can see the way light passes through glass with enough detail to differentiate between different makes and varieties)

The thing nearly fell on top of him, but he managed to push it away and stumble back as the Grimm fell.

"Well," he said, "that was something."

"Not really," I said. "That was easy, plain and simple."

"You kids never seem to understand the value of every fight."

"I've been in plenty, believe me."

"You're not the first to say that, and you won't be the last."

"Whatever. Go collect your bounty, old man. I'll check on the victims."

I jogged off before he had time to retort, going back to the clearing where the woman and child were still laying. The mother was holding her child and weeping, so I ran over. I slowly moved her aside to see the damage to the boy. He had many minor injuries from branches and stones, but the biggest wound was a large gash on his back, now a deep red with dried blood.

I took my gauntlets off and felt for a pulse. It took a moment, but I felt a small beat in his neck.

"Run in town and get help," I told the woman as I started tearing the boy's shirt off to examine the wound fully.

"My baby . . ." she sobbed.

"Listen!" I grabbed her chin and gave a solid shake. "Go to town and get help. I can do a lot, but I need a friend in town. She's a priest. Go now."

"Uuuhh, uuuhh, okay," she gasped, and went to get Jalen.

I got to work doing what I could for the kid. Straining myself to the limit, I used my Semblance to see if he had anything festering in his gash, like a piece of bark or Grimm talon. Seeing none, I began to deal with the bleeding. With a soft, red light to lightly cauterize the wound. After wiping the rest of the blood off, I started shining the healing light I learned when I was around three. It was entirely by accident, honestly. I was surrounded by five Ursai that had taken the use of my shield arm. I was on the verge of fainting, but I managed to pull from another part of my Aura I had never knew existed. If I had to describe the sensation of healing anything, it would be as if you were to expose your most sensitive skin to the wind of a hurricane. Nothing is in the wind, mind. It's just the sensation and pressure of the wind itself you feel. Not bad, but there.

Anyway, I went to work healing the worst of the boys' wound. I'm use to healing my own flesh to the fullest, but I wasn't as comfortable doing the same for others at the time. Remember, special Dust nerves here. They are three times as connected to each other as normal ones and can adapt easily, so I never had to worry about anything but the main veins being patched properly.

I tell you this so that when I tell you that Jalen took over and started really healing the boy, you know why I was impressed with her skill in the healing arts.

She truly let the Light shine through her that day, even if she's modest about it. I spent a good minute looking the boy over after she had healed him, using my Semblance to microscopically enhance my vision to see the inner muscles and blood vessels she had put back together. Every vessel was connected. Some obviously not at the right places, but blood flow was 100% normal because of her work.

"How did you patch him up so well?" I said after I was done looking him over.

"I've a lot of practice," she sighed, then turned to the child. "How do you feel, Jeffery?"

He curled into his mother's stomach, where she held him tight.

"Thank you so much," she said. "I thought I'd lost him."

"Don't worry," Jalen said. "He'll have some pain for a few days, but he'll be fine. Tell me though if anything else happens in that area, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you so much for all your help, Priest."

"It's alright, Bethany. Go home and rest."

She walked off, and that left me, Jalen, and the Hunter alone.

"That," said the Hunter, "was some mystical crap you pulled right there. How'd you do it?"

"We've photo kinesis," Jalen said. "So when you control a part of the universe, you learn how to use it."

"Can you do that, Shiny?" He said, turning to me.

"It's Kuraz, and to an extent," I said. "I do hard light creating."

"What?"

I made the sword of light again.

"This kind of thing."

"Oh. Nice trick. How do you do it?"

"Like her, photo kinesis."

"Wait, so you two have the same Semblance? Wow."

"We know, it's rare for two people to have the same Semblance like us."

"Yeah, even for siblings."

We talked over each other while trying to say 'no, we're not related.'

"Oh," he said. "That's even stranger."

"Yeah," I said. "We know."

"Oh!" Jalen exclaimed. "We never got your name."

"Qrow. And you are, gorgeous?"

"Jalen, though it's not official yet?"

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Well, in this village, you go through a ceremony to gain the name of your choice."

"Wait, so what were you called when growing up?"

"Priest."

An alarm went off in her Scroll before he could respond to that piece of information. She pulled it out and checked it.

"Hey, Kuraz," Jalen said. "We should get going. The Ceremony will be starting soon, and we need to get you some better clothes than that."

"Alright," I said. "Let's go."

"Alright. Later, Qrow."

And we walked off after that.

I won't bore you with the details, but we managed to get me a nice gold collared shirt, some beige cargo pants, and a set of white sneakers that I managed to make slip-ons by tying the knots just right. We left my armor at Jalen's home, though I was insistent on hiding it so as to avoid possible theft. We made it just as they were rolling the stand that held all the cups of herbs and powdered Dust. A small crowd was already forming on one side of the stage, and another on the side with the steps with all the ones about to go get their names. We joined into the group, though it was kind of awkward doing so, the tallest of the rest reaching our chests.

"How old are most of them, do you think?" I asked Jalen.

"Fourteen, most likely," She said. "We're definitely the oldest."

"Is that weird, or no?"

"A little. Most kids usually pick their names at the age of fourteen, so we're the minority."

"Like in every other regard."

"Hey, we can still be friends with them."

That threw me off guard.

"Uh, I didn't say anything about being friends," I said.

"Well," Jalen said, "what you said sounded like you were alienated and hated being such, so I thought I should say something to that capacity."

"Um, okay. I don't mean to say that you're wrong in that regard, but we are aliens to this planet as it is. A new race unlike anything this world has seen before. While we can fraternize with them, we will always be fundamentally different from them."

"Doesn't mean we can't be friends."

"Not saying we can't, just that we have to keep our difference in mind when dealing with them."

"Don't see how being partially made of Dust would make us so different to a human or Faunus."

"Don't you remember what the doctors said about our life-spans?"

"Life-spans? I don't know. How long was whatever it is you're talking about?"

"Like, when we were done learning english. It was something they made a big deal out of."

"Mmmmm, no, drawing a blank. What about it?"

"Well, so long as we aren't killed, we should, theoretically, live forever."

She looked incredibly shocked by the news.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "They analyzed the way our bodies regenerate both naturally and with our Semblances and concluded that so long as nothing aims to kill us specifically, we could live forever."

"So we're immortal?"

"No, we can still be killed or fall ill."

"But we have a chance at living forever?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. That really limits my options in a boyfriend."

"Once I make our kingdom, maybe not. We could maybe make you one, if you got desperate."

The last line was meant as a joke, but she focused on the other thing I said.

"You really plan on making a kingdom of Dusters?" she asked.

"We NEED a kingdom of Dusters," I replied. "With one, we can build our race and make sure we aren't kept as slaves again."

"'Sigh' you really are ambitious."

"Not even a little. It's just logical to make a place for ourselves where we can grow separate from human control. If we can't, we would start a war with them."

"No, we wouldn't."

"They're still fighting about Faunus Civil Rights and combating the White Fang. They're not going to accept bio-weapons as an equal without fear or power. My method involves power, but it's not directly pointed at killing the other races, just with founding our own culture and safe haven for our kind."

"But what makes you think you can do this? I mean, you're not just talking about making a kingdom, which is unlikely enough as it is, but of fathering a whole race into a world you yourself said wasn't ready for something like us. Why do you feel the need to do something so . . . so drastic and grand?"

"Because one way or another, we, and others like us, are here now and intend to stay. We can't stop the creation of our race without genocide, which I will NOT do. As such, somebody needs to create a place for them – for us – so that we won't be abused or treated unfairly in this unfair world. I have the ability to at least try doing this, and I owe it to me, you, Zack, Clair – I owe it to our kind to do what I can to help them."

"And what of the other races? Do you think to just ignore them completely, or maybe you want to destroy Atlas and take over the world."

"I don't want world domination, and I don't plan on attacking Atlas either. They made us out of fear of the Grimm. They went overboard in what they did to us and are doing to others, which I will never forgive them for, but they had the best of intention. At least at the start. So while I wouldn't mind leading an army to raze their capital and kill everyone associated with 'The Program,' I won't do it. As for what I plan to do in regards to interaction between us Dusters and the humans and Faunus as a whole, I don't know yet. What do you think I should do?"

She opened her mouth to say something, stopped, then took a minute to think over her own question.

"Not everyone is bound to be like you are, Paly," she began. "Refusing to act on their emotions, I mean."

"Believe me," I said, "If I hadn't had years to think about it, I would probably be trying to destroy Atlas by myself right now."

"Regardless, some, if not most, will try to do that. But that would only cause pain and trouble for a lot of people, including us. So we can't have them doing that, but I don't know how we should react as a race to them, either."

"Guess we'll save that for another day," I said as the Ceremony began to start.

It wasn't much, all things considered. The platform only had a small stand near the center with lots of different cups, each filled with a herb or Dust, seemingly at random. Hedmund was there also, is a flowing robe of colors that would have been garish had they not been so dull. He stood right next to the center in front of the stand, and us on the other side as we walked towards him, one by one. He opened with this long-winded piece:

"Friends, family, and other compatriots, we are here to witness the formal coming of age of our wonderful young ones. See here that these once innocent children are no longer such, but are now truly grown beings to be treated with the respect they have striven for. But let us take a moment to remember those that are not with us on this journey through life, misfortune taking them from us . . .

"Remembrance done, please join in this celebration of these new being, now ready to claim their names from the world."

The first few went up, stating their names as Kevin Syre or Samos Tour, and Hedmund would anoint their face with an herb or Dust and say 'Recognize him/her,' which the crowd responded with 'We recognize him/her.'

Jalen went before me, eager to gain her name. When she did, Hedmund used white Dust to paint her face like that of a steer. (*It's meant as a symbol of healing and nature, but it looked so Light-shined funny at the time) She glowed a little as the last bit of Dust was applied, and I swear it formed white antlers before Jalen used her Semblance to hide the effect.

Then it was my turn. I walked on stage, feeling rather conscious about how I must seem to these people. Everyone so far has been a familiar face to the people watching me now. They know them, but don't know me. Coupled with the fact that I feel naked without my armor and in a disadvantageous position, and you got yourself one uneasy Duster. Hell, my nerves were too nervous to make me nervous, that was how weird it felt.

He makes a small motion for me to lower myself, the hand out of sight from everyone. It takes me a moment, but I realize that I'm tall enough to make this a little awkward for him. So I get on one knee, in case I need to suddenly roll or jump up in a moment. Jalen said that it made me look like a man about to be knighted. I think the word she used was 'magnanimous.'

Hedmund takes a moment to 'hear the Light,' then, of course, takes the gold Lightning Dust for my marking. He painted me as an animal as well, which I should have mentioned was rare, as most of the time you get a symbol on your forehead. I, Jalen, Zack, and Clara are of the few to have ever been made into an animal (*Zack was made a bear and Clara I think was an octopus. Glad I wasn't there, though, as everyone tells me that she was brutal with one kid that teases her about it and made tree roots grab him and carry him all over town, crying and screaming in fear. He wasn't hurt, but she traumatized him and showed everyone not to make fun of her animal. She's actually proud to be thought of as one, for some reason) Maybe he sensed our nature and chose to do this as a sign of control? Like how some ancient cultures would have doctors worship gods of disease so as to help with healing.

In any case, I was made into a wolf, though I swear he was going for bear again with me. Or maybe my round face just didn't highlight the snout he tried to make. Regardless, I was made a wolf, I hid my glow as he finished, I rose, 'We recognize,' and I'm off the stage.

I go to wipe my face, but Zack comes up behind me and grabs my hand, stopping me.

"Don't do that yet," he said. "There's a small after-party at Clar's spot, and they'll serve you free if you're still wearing that."

"Okay," I said, letting my hand fall to my side as he lets go of it. "Look, about what I was saying at the -"

"its fine, man. I know you were speaking from the heart. I can get heated at times as well."

"Was that a pun?"

"What?"

"'Heated?'"

"Oh, ho ho ho, yeah. It wasn't intentional."

"Alright. In any case, I still snapped at you out of the blue, and for someone who freed me from 'The Program,' I should have been more respectful."

"I won't argue that point, but that's because I don't know how to. Anyway, let's get something to eat."

"I'm fine. I actually want to go to bed. I haven't had a normal sleep in . . . Light, it must be years now."

"Seriously?! Where you awake all of the time."

"Nope, I was regularly drugged."

"Light Shine it, man! Look, at least let me make sure you're full before you go to bed. I'm telling you, nothing knocks you out nicer than a food coma."

"I DON'T WANT TO BE A VEGGIE, YOU FREAK!"

"What? . . . Oh! No, no, no, it's a figure of speech! I'm not going to actually put you in a coma with food."

"Relax, I was kidding. Let's just go already."

And so we went. The party was nice, the 'new men' flirting with the 'new women,' lots of popular music, and some dancing. Jalen made me dance at one point, but even though I could 'make those sick moves,' (*As one guy put it when I was about done) I could only really copy someone else's dancing style. If I was on my own, I didn't know what to do and everyone saw it. But it was nice.

For once, everything was nice.


End file.
